Yuki Onna
by Void
Summary: AU based on folk tales and war sagas - ghosts and spirits and samurai. It began in a snowstorm. A troubled warrior harbors a secret. A young woman is missing her past. Complete with epilogue.
1. Kohai

.

She turned with the weight of a snowstorm to cast her eyes on him, to be in his presence and really _see_ him.

He had the smile of a child, but his eyes... knowing, wondering, and all the while confident and _joyful_.

.

"Have you ever seen a forest like this before, Himura?" Akira asked, turning to look at his young companion.

"Not in the winter," Shinta mumbled. And then louder - "It looks like the snow is coming down harder." He frowned up at the sky to make his point. Snowflakes were swirling gently down around them singly and in clumps from clouds high above the pine trees. Shinta could well imagine the miserable night ahead of them if the weather didn't let up or they couldn't find shelter before dark set in.

"Listen," Akira commanded. He abruptly stopped walking, and Shinta, behind him, halted. "You can hear the snow falling on the branches. It's tiny ice crystals, you know."

"Hn... We should see about building a shelter while there's still light."

Akira bowed his head in acknowledgment, chuckling slightly. "Yes, I suppose this trek is a bit longer than what our map let on. But don't lose hope; there's supposed to be a woodcutter's hut somewhere around here. We should try to find that before we start fooling around with twigs and things."

Shinta tried not to glower in the direction of his foster brother; it was a losing battle. Kiyosato-sempai had been raised all his life in the daimyo's mansion and would never _dream_ of spending a night on the cold earth. They would probably freeze to death before they found the mythical hut on sempai's dubious map.

Shinta was so busy contemplating the injustices of being an indebted orphan to the daimyo's family that he almost ran straight into Akira when the older boy suddenly stopped moving. In his defense, the snowfall had picked up to the point of making it hard to see.

"Did you see it? Shinta?"

Eh? "The hut?" But Akira's voice had been... shaky, and he had called Shinta by his personal name.

"N...No... Never mind." Akira breathed audibly and then, shaking his head to himself, continued walking.

Darkness fell quickly after that, and at the same time the storm waned and died. Shinta had been at the point of arguing for a bed of pine needles once again when the clouds cleared and the moon shone through from almost directly over their heads. It cast an otherwordly light on the snow that blanketed the ground and the branches of trees and the hooded cloaks of the two young men. The woodcutter's hut appeared dead ahead of them, a ragged jumble of damp shadows and glowing, snow-covered boards.

Shinta collapsed into a corner, sensible enough to grab a half-frozen blanket and fling it over himself but too tired to even open his eyes when he heard Akira fasten the rickety door shut.

.

It was no use. He had slept heavily for a short period of time, but lying still like that the warmth had crept out of him and no amount of shivering was putting it back. The young traveler resigned himself to wakefulness.

Blinking in the dark, feeling the cold, it took Shinta a few moments to notice something wrong. He could hear the storm raging again, fiercer than ever, but that wasn't it.

_Where is Kiyosato-sempai?_

Truly puzzled and beginning to become worried, Shinta stood up and started examining the small confines of the hut. A shriveled lump of blankets wedged against the corner... No... Unless Kiyosato-sempai had shrunk.

Perhaps... He wouldn't have... Something must have drawn him out...

Shinta could hear the wind whistling through cracks in the walls, could see the flimsy door _shake_ with the force of the storm. Snow was forming a little pile along its edge.

But if sempai wasn't _inside_ the hut...

Shinta grabbed his sword and went out to investigate.

He stepped outside and could barely recognize the landscape as belonging to a human realm.

It was the middle of the night but there was so much _light_. Shadows moved behind the clouds - hazy, twisting shapes of green and red light. Snow billowed everywhere around him, disorienting him though he had only taken a few steps from the hut. The eerie lights and the whistling wind were dazzling Shinta's mind.

_I have to find Kiyosato-sempai_.

Determined, he clutched his cloak tighter around him and moved in the direction where the strange lights seemed brightest.

.

In every shadow of every old pine tree, he saw the huddled form of his foster brother, cloak half-buried by snow. In every swirl of snow he thought he heard a faint cry for help. But something told him these imaginings weren't real and he pressed onward, moving urgently despite the blizzard that tugged at his legs and blinded his vision. The snakes of light danced above him, and in front him, the moon once more guided his path through the trees - a hazy halo of light like an eye, watching him.

The wind that had been moving the clouds and the snow so furiously was dying now, seemed to diminish with every step Shinta took. By the time he stood in the shadow of a great tree at the edge of a clearing, there was a veritable hush in the air.

Not that Shinta noticed. All his comprehension had narrowed to the sense of sight - the vision in front of him and he _couldn't believe his eyes_.

.


	2. Hushed

.

"Senpai!"

Shinta shouted. He started, started to run. His muscles clenched - to run up to Akira, to tear the man away - to run away, with or without Akira.

He couldn't move.

Snow.

It was a woman.

Black eyes searing him, holding him.

He couldn't move.

Her arms lifted around Kiyosato-sempai's shoulders, enclosing him in a fold of white fabric (snow), a cascade of black hair.

Shinta sucked in a breath to shout again, and the air froze inside his chest.

The snow maiden turned her eyes, then her face, back to Akira, as though Shinta had never interrupted.

Akira bent his head down to her.

Something like smoke, something like steam passed from his lips to hers.

She kissed him.

He kissed her.

A cocoon of silence all around them - Shinta and Akira and the woman. Shinta shouted and swore, soundless. The couple did not flinch, did not move.

Snow swirling around them, silence caressing them, as he held her and she touched his face and she breathed in his life as they kissed.

All Shinta could do was watch, horrified.

He saw that she was beautiful.

He couldn't move.

.

Finally something shattered.

Shinta blinked.

The woman was gone, and Akira was lying on the ground, covered by an inch of snow. Dead. No - alive? Perhaps alive. Shinta bundled him into his own cloak and dragged the older boy back to the cabin as quickly as his muscles could move him, cupped his hands over the chapped skin and breathed to warm it.

Long hours while Akira only seemed to grow colder.

.

Morning saw the storm break - a cold blue sky and a distant, indifferent sun. The blinding brightness of the snow.

Shinta tore himself from the wood pickers' cabin to find the way back home. Too much wasted time stumbling over snow-covered roots and rocks, smashing his frozen fingers against branches in his path.

Trying to escape the memory of those eyes.

Her black eyes.

Shinta met an old man and his son - the woodsmen - on the path, told them to rush ahead. "The daimyo's son was caught in the storm - hurry!" They asked no questions - they dropped their bundles of sticks against an old tree and ran on.

Shinta reached the mansion, gasped to the servants and retainers that the daimyo's son had nearly frozen to death - "barely breathing," "no fire," "the woodscutter's hut," "might still be alive."

His knees hit the earth of the courtyard before he had finished speaking.

His words tangled in his throat.

The woman.

The snow.

The kiss.

Her silent, solemn face.

Her black eyes.

Her eyes.

Shinta closed his own eyes and lost all thought.

.


	3. A listless spring

.

Shinta was ill with achings and fever for a week. He shouted in his delirium. He flinched away from the servant girls who tried to tend to him. He didn't recognize them.

He opened his eyes one morning and knew that his fever had broken. The nightmare had ended.

.

Sempai came to visit him. His smile was as stupidly gentle as ever, but he was weak and pale. Mirine, pulling aside the breakfast tray, whispered sternly to Shinta not to tire him.

Shinta wondered, seeing the haggard weariness of the older boy. "Senpai, did you see... Do you remember? In the snow..."

"You were dreaming, Shinta."

He smiled, gentle and meaningless, while his gaze drifted toward the shoji door, toward the courtyard, where snow still dusted the earth.

.

Shinta did not press any further, not then or in the days that followed, as he regained his health, resumed his duties and acquired new ones. He no longer assisted Kiyosato-sempai, because Kiyosato-sempai no longer trained.

The shadows lingered under Akira's skin, and as the snow melted, the older boy grew even weaker. He talked less and less. He began to cough.

But it was none of Shinta's business what demons Sempai got into his head or into his soul.

Even if he had been there.

Even if he had witnessed it.

Shinta remembered her eyes.

.

Akira never spoke of it, even if once, more than once, Shinta had heard him sigh, sitting on the porch nursing broth or tea, "She is so lonely."

Shinta would not acknowledge it. He would not admit to his fear.

Shinta was learning to fight. His skills had drawn the daimyo's attention, but the old man would not send Shinta to guard the borders of their land while Akira might still recover.

Akira told him, "You can't imagine what it is like to feel so alone," mildness in his voice, darkness in his eyes.

Shinta turned his gaze away and walked out into the yard - to build his strength, to hone his skills.

To escape Sempai's eyes, watching him or watching nothing.

.

Akira died before the summer solstice.


	4. Summer

Shinta took his place among the soldiers that summer.

When he was younger, he could only practice the sword and the spear in between running errands for Kiyosato-sempai, fetching his weapons and looking after his armor. The men had mocked him for his servant duties, his peasant manners, his surliness, his stature, his sun-reddened hair, even his name.

"Shinta? Are you a lover in a song? You'd better pick a stronger name than that if you want to become a samurai."

"If you don't grow more muscles than my youngest daughter we're going to start you washing laundry with the other women!"

But the daimyo himself had taken Shinta in to be a younger brother, a companion, a follower to Akira, as the old man had no other sons. And so, the daimyo's retainers tormented Shinta in good humor, to toughen him up.

Shinta no longer displayed his smoldering resentment at their jokes. He focused only on practicing and on sparring. He grew stronger, harder, faster, while their tongues fell silent. The men began to see Shinta as a swordsman worthy of respect.

It wasn't a time for joking, in any case. Akira had been admired - even loved - by nearly everyone, from the samurai to the servants to the shamans and advisors. The echoes of his humor and his joy - the sudden onset of his illness, the change in him - it left a chill.

The old daimyo was grieving deeply for his son. He seemed to pull into himself, while his hopelessness drifted like an illness throughout the household and even to the villages and fields. His plans, his amusements, his relationships... Nothing changed, but everything the old man did was muted, delayed, as though his soul were already moving into its grave, while his body kept on living. The samurai, the servants - all went into limbo with him and prayed that he would find strength.

While the Kiyosato clan tried to console itself, heal itself, the warlords who controlled the surrounding lands could sense this weakness, as a pack of wolves, miles distant, smells injury and fear.

.

There had finally been a spell of genuinely hot weather - good for the crops after such a cold and wet spring, the winter that had not wanted to let go.

Shinta felt the sun on his back, the ache in his muscles, the sweat trickling down his skin as he rested after a long series of katana swings. He wanted his body to remember this heat. He wanted to forget that the cold had ever existed.

He was getting stronger. He was as quick as any swordsman the daimyo could call upon. If he could continue to develop his technique over the next few years, he would be able to hold his head high among the best of the daimyo's samurai.

The thought disturbed him. Shinta had always been low, an oddity, an outsider - desperately poor as a child and then kohai, a follower, an adopted son, after his family had died. He would have starved to death if the daimyo hadn't found him.

He couldn't imagine... Position. Prestige. Honor. Aristocracy.

But he couldn't stop practicing.

Learning to deliver death.

Meanwhile, the slash of his blade through wooden stands and training dummies reminded him of so much wheat, falling before the scythe.

He would have been a simple farmer, if his parents had lived.

He could still remember the smell of the earth through the different seasons. It had seemed as though they were always outside, in all weather, only at dark going to sleep in a hut that might as well have been a burrow.

He remembered his mother holding him. He remembered being fascinated by his father's hands.

They might have died another year, if the plague hadn't taken them. They might have all been killed in a raid.

Shinta raised his sword for another strike - something caught his eye on the horizon.

Smoke.

The signal.

An attack.


	5. Transformed

Shinta has killed fifteen men, one for every year he's been alive.

Eighteen of their own soldiers have fallen to the earth, and there is a new attack every week.

They are one clan battling three others.

They will fight until no Kiyosato man woman or child is left alive.

The daimyo calls him into the main hall after the latest battle. Shinta barely has time to wash the blood from his face, change into a fresh set of clothes.

There is a flash of anguish in the old man's eye. An ember of determination.

"I had had this commissioned for Akira."

The daimyo is giving him a sword, the finest he has ever seen.

This sword destroys childhood, destroys Shinta.

His name is Kenshin now.

He is a samurai.


	6. Cast clay

TWO YEARS LATER

.

When the monks first found her, she had known nothing - nothing. They told her it was as though she had only just been born.

She could not read or write. She spoke, but she did not know the uses of ordinary things. She did not know her family, her village, her clan, or her name.

A beautiful young girl, wandering around the mountain on her own, carrying nothing, wearing nothing but a single set of clothes, neither coarse nor fine.

A beautiful, trusting young girl.

Even a princess would not have been so naive.

The monks took pity on her and brought her into their sanctuary.

The monks tried to find her family. The master worried, rightly, about the search taking too long.

The boy who found her called her Kaoru, after his sister, who had died.

.

After a few weeks, one of the novices tried to seduce her.

"I don't think he is ready to become a monk," she told the master, seeming unperturbed. The master frowned and shook his head.

And so the monks found a place for her with the old couple who supplied their cloth - poor people but kind. Safe. Kaoru was their servant, but they called her granddaughter.

Good to settle into a new family, a new home. Kaoru had felt so unbalanced, moving from one life to another. Bowing her head meekly while her sprit felt like a bowl full of water, tumbling over, ready to spill.

She wouldn't have expressed what she was feeling even if she could have. She didn't know the words for it - she had a horror of being abandoned, being alone. She had a horror of what she didn't know.

Everything she couldn't remember - it wasn't just a blank, like sleeping. It was the nightmare. It was a consuming emptiness. It was fear.

So she smiled all the brighter and doubled the energy she put into her chores. Sitting in between grandfather and grandmother, following the movements of their gnarled fingers with her fine young hands, learning to weave.

The old man and the old woman were so kind to her, so kind to the lost girl, the idiot girl.

The monks had been kind. The master had been kind.

The novice had been kind, but then he was holding her arm and he didn't let go, gripping her so tightly...

What happened after that? She wasn't sure, but he stopped. He stopped, frozen, and then, silently, he turned around, looking like she felt.

Pale. Stunned. Cold.

Kaoru didn't like to feel afraid.

.


	7. A meeting between two travelers

Realizing the determination of the Kiyosato to hold out to the last person's last breath, the daimyo of the Koshimizu clan made a bold decision to join forces with the Kiyosato against the other warlords.

The alliance proved to be a strong one. A marriage was carried out between the youngest daughter of the Koshimizu and the Kiyosato daimyo's nephew, and together the two clans turned the tide against their enemies. From facing mutual annihilation, the Kiyosato and Koshimizu samurai became a powerful force of aggression. The old daimyo of Kiyosato especially desired revenge for his wounded honor, desired revenge against the callousness of enemies who had seen weakness in his sorrow for his son.

Over the past two years, they were the ones who conquered. They slaughtered opposing armies and demolished towns.

Kenshin didn't feel anything - the terror and frenzy of battle, the tedium of travel, the rituals of bushido - it was as if he were watching the actions of his body from a separate place.

He didn't feel anything when he killed.

After each battle, if he had no other duties, he would watch the harvest of the battlefield. He watched the women - mothers, wives, daughters - silent women, collecting their dead, bearing their sorrows with hunched backs, slow and heavy steps. Mothers and daughters and wives of dead soldiers - some of them men Kenshin himself had killed.

Even in the winter, when there were no battles, women with black eyes and hungry, angry faces haunted his dreams.

.

With Kaoru helping with the weaving, grandfather and grandmother accumulated a surplus to sell. The monks had all the cloth they needed, and so Kaoru and the old man borrowed an ox-drawn cart to make the long journey to the nearest town.

"It may be that we will be attacked on the road," Genzai told her. "Thankfully I have my staff."

"Maybe I should learn, too," Kaoru suggested.

Kaoru pulled her long hair into a topknot and bound her breasts and donned loose, boyish clothes. She practiced her staff with the monks every day the week before they planned to leave.

"Of course, it will be no use against a sword," Genzai observed, "but perhaps we can scare off thieves."

The monks sent another foundling, a boy named Yahiko, to accompany them on the road. They would return with supplies for the sanctuary, if they returned at all.

.

They left in late summer.

Kaoru could feel the total warmth of each long day seeping into her skin. It felt right. Something about this journey felt right, like a part of her was awakening after a long sleep. Something like a familiar scent, a familiar scene, a forgotten horizon.

They had hardly enough food to feed the three of them, but Kaoru was full of energy nonetheless. She picked fights with Yahiko constantly. Sparring helped them develop their limited skills, and it passed the time. Grandfather would shout "Children!" after he'd had enough, and they would dust themselves off and sprint to catch up with the cart.

Yahiko was quiet when he wasn't shouting insults at her. Something had hurt him, hurt his heart, but he was a good boy, even if he was rude.

.

Kaoru hadn't imagined - no one had warned her - how desperate people could be.

The first night thieves tried to steal away with their ox and their cart full of cloth, it was Yahiko who heard them first, shouted in fury, and attacked them with his stick. As soon as the thieves saw Kaoru and Genzai leap to attention, staffs in hand, they bolted into the darkness.

Yahiko was breathing hard and shaking. Kaoru could only think of how hollow and hungry their eyes had looked.

They had few peaceful evenings after that.

At night, Kaoru and Yahiko and Genzai slept in shifts, guarding the cart. During the day, they watched the people they passed - farmers collecting the harvest and some travelers like themselves, mostly walking, weary, the long road. Sometimes samurai rode past in clattering armor, bristling with spear and sword.

.

Genzai gave some of their food to a woman carrying two sick children, some to a crippled old man.

They had nothing left but their cloth, their cart, their ox, and themselves by the time they reached the outer defensive wall of the town.

Two samurai met them at the gate. "The way is closed," the bigger one told them. "This castle is under siege."

Genzai waved vaguely at their cart. "We came to sell our cloth. Surely there is a market among the soldiers."

The samurai seemed bored and slightly annoyed. "We will pay you for any food you have to sell."

Genzai frowned.

Kaoru held her breath to listen. She had never been so close to a samurai and she was afraid. The man was large and strange in his grotesque, stylized armor, bearing strips of patterned fabric, the hilts of weapons she didn't understand. Kaoru was also hungry, and she knew that Yahiko must be ravenous. She worried what would happen if they were turned away. They had no food.

Yet something distracted her.

The man standing off to the side - the second samurai. He wore simpler armor, fewer weapons, and no helmet. With his reddish hair and fine features, he looked very young, almost delicate compared to the man who was gruffly denying Genzai's plea.

He seemed... so... familiar.

No one had seemed familiar to Kaoru for as long as she could remember.

She stared.

.

Kenshin felt the weight of the youth's eyes on him and shifted slightly away.

Why was he staring? Had Kenshin killed someone close to him?

His movement drew Yoshi's attention. Yoshi glanced at Kenshin and then looked back at the family.

"What's your boy gaping at?" Yoshi demanded of the merchant.

"Ah, I'm afraid my grandson is a bit simple..."

"You know me."

Kenshin stared at the boy - woman? She had spoken with quiet certainty.

Did he know her? Was she one of those women who had collected bones from the battlefield? How could he have forgotten the shape of her body, her face..? Why confront him here, now, in disguise?

The merchant cleared his throat and bowed deeply. "I must apologize. This is our first visit to these parts. As I said, my grandson is simple. He has been so from birth. Please forgive us."

The woman-boy blinked, hesitant, before bowing low alongside the old man and the younger boy.

Kenshin's heart pounded. He didn't recognize them, but perhaps he should have. He knew they were lying, but perhaps he wanted to allow them their lie.

Her voice, her clear eyes - she had seemed so calm, so sure, and almost... proud, accusing him of knowing her.

.


	8. The breaking storm

He lost her.

Yoshi sent him to fetch the master of supplies to arrange a trade.

When he reached the master's tent, the commander there had another message for him. A replacement would go with the master to guard the entrance.

Kenshin could not protest a simple order.

He could not go back to question the girl.

He lost her.

He knew her, she said. She seemed to know _him_.

She had looked him in the eye and spoken to him. No one looked at him or spoke to him like that. He was only an orphan, recipient of pointless teasing and endless orders. The only people who looked him in the eye were the men he fought. Some had scarred him. Some he had scarred. Some he had killed.

He was Kenshin. He was no one's son, no one's brother, no one's lover, no one's friend. Even Akira, whom Kenshin remembered with faded echoes of resentment and fear, had only known Shinta, and now Shinta did not exist.

But Kenshin was _something_... to her.

Now he might never see her again.

.

After seeing him, Kaoru only knew that she had been lost, and this samurai - this young man... Something about him called to something in her, something she had forgotten - something beating inside her - a rhythm, a pulse.

Yahiko tugged on her arm as Grandfather tried to barter with the camp's supply master for some food, some tools. "What's wrong with you?" he hissed. "Are you trying to draw attention to us?"

"I don't know... I'm sorry. I don't know what it is about that man."

"He looks strange. You act strange. Maybe you're both possessed."

Kaoru's grip tightened on her stick, suddenly feeling ill. "You don't know anything about it."

"I know we need to get these supplies back to the mountain with as little trouble as possible."

"I'm not going back."

"What? Are you crazy?"

Kaoru felt shocked at her own words. She had never imagined abandoning this journey or the home she had with Genzai and Kohaku - Grandfather and Grandmother.

"I... I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

Kaoru felt very cold, suddenly. She felt afraid. "Nothing. I don't know what I meant. I'm... not staying here. I'm returning home."

Yahiko looked at her mistrustfully while she shook her head to clear it and pretended that nothing was wrong.

But Kaoru felt ill.

She had spoken what she intended to do, but she felt like she had lied.

.

For such fine-spun, well-woven cloth, the master of supplies gave them enough food to last the journey as well as some ironwork tools to take back to the mountain.

Genzai, Kaoru, and Yahiko packed their cart and started back the way they came. Grandfather said nothing to her, only glancing at her worriedly, while Yahiko kept watch over her as though afraid that she would bolt.

They had gotten a few miles away from the camp by the time that night fell.

It began to rain.

After an hour, it started to pour.

By midnight, they were in the middle of a hailstorm.

Their ox bellowed and struggled to break free. Kaoru and Genzai pushed against its flanks to comfort and guide it while Yahiko ran into the field off the path to try to find a place where they could shelter.

Yahiko was sprinting back toward them, waving his arm. Kaoru shouted to Genzai, "He found something!"

She could not hear the old man for a moment, but then he commanded, "Look!"

A rider, coming up behind Yahiko, overtaking him across the field. A samurai. He leapt from his mount between them and the boy. They could not see Yahiko. The samurai had his hand on the hilt of his sword.

It was the same red-haired swordsman.

Then Yahiko came forward, the samurai following, still holding the grip of his sword. Bright streaks of lightening illuminated the fear and anger on Yahiko's face, the cold determination of the samurai.

"All of you must come with me," the samurai said as they approached, barely audible over the storm.

Kaoru caught Yahiko by his shirt and pulled him to stand behind her, with Grandfather and the cart.

"Why?" she demanded.

"Don't ask questions. Just come."

"Let them go home. I'm the one you want. It was me." Again, Kaoru heard her own words as though someone else had spoken them, but still she held her ground between the samurai and Genzai and the boy.

She stood without bowing or flinching, watching the samurai's eye.

He stared at her. "...You."

She spoke with calm conviction. "It was me."

The samurai glanced at Yahiko and Genzai, frowning. He looked back to Kaoru.

She stared at him, and he stared at her. Rain was dripping into their eyes, small hailstones striking the wet earth around them. The storm, the situation, it all seemed to fade away before the question between them. _What is this with us? Who are you?_

"It will be worse for you," the samurai finally spoke, "if you are alone."

"Even so."

"Very well. The three of you had parted ways. I only found you."

Kaoru nodded. "You found me."

The samurai, in turn, nodded his assent.

Kaoru turned around and threw her arms around Grandfather, who seemed to be weeping. He murmured something into her ear - something like "knew we couldn't keep you." She hugged Yahiko, though she had barely gotten to know the boy. He stiffened and refused to look at her.

"Come on," the samurai snapped. He whistled for his horse and helped her mount it, then climbed up in front of her and ordered her to hold on.

"Stay safe!" Kaoru shouted as they galloped onto the road, into the storm, leaving her companions behind.

.


	9. what the thunder said

The summer rainstorm to the winter snow:

_Sister_

_ Why are you hiding?_


	10. A night of wolves

_Author's Note: Thank you to reviewers! I'm trying to just let the story take its course, so I'm not going to say much - at least not until it's finished - but I do appreciate your comments and your theories. :) _

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.

Kaoru wanted to ask what had happened - she wanted to ask what would happen to her - she wanted to ask his name - but riding in the dark, through the storm, she could only hold onto his armor as tightly as she could, struggling to stay balanced, hoping not to slide off.

Though it was much faster returning than walking with the cart, it seemed like the ride would never end. This - this cold and this terror and this ignorance, this blindness - this was her nightmare. She was living it. She had chosen this, when she had stood before Yahiko and Genzai and insisted that the samurai take her alone.

If she had known what she was choosing...

Kaoru was on the verge of collapse from cold and anxiety and exhaustion by the time they finally stopped. The sky was still black with night and with storm clouds, the air a cacophony of sleeting rain. Kaoru felt her body quake with shivering, her teeth chattering together when she didn't clench them shut. The samurai lifted her down from the horse and kept his grip on her arms, holding her upright.

He was looking at her, examining her face so closely - and she would have asked him - asked him anything - if she could speak.

Then he turned his attention toward the gate. It took her a moment to hear the shouting, see traces of smoke and flame, hear what sounded like weapons and screams.

He was pulling her forward, and there was another man dressed in armor, a black silhouette against the darkness.

"She was the only one of them I could find," the young samurai was saying.

"Take her to the captain's tent, and hurry. You're needed near the wall."

The red-haired samurai tried to walk forward with her, but Kaoru stumbled. He lifted her in his arms.

"...your name..." she asked, "What is your name?"

He must not have heard her, or was ignoring her, but Kaoru did not have the strength to ask again. A distance through the wet darkness, away from the clamor, and suddenly they were inside the tent - a brazier burning gently between a circle of men. The warmth, the light, the escape from the rain - she was going to faint.

Two of the men were approaching as the samurai set her down. Kaoru realized she felt helpless, among these strangers, these soldiers, hostile to her. Feeling helpless made her angry. Dizzy, shivering, weak, she could only clench her fists.

The samurai paused after he had lowered her to sit on the floor. His back to the other men, his head bent low next to her, he murmured, "My name is Kenshin."

Then he was gone.

.

"Where?" Kenshin called to Yoshi as he recognized the other man.

Yoshi stretched his arm toward a slight rise behind the city wall. "Mibu samurai. There."

Kenshin pulled his sword from its sheath, sight and hearing focused on the fight ahead. He could sense them now - the men dueling and the wolves circling. He sprinted past Yoshi into the fray.

.

.

"She's no use to us dead. Fetch a blanket for her, something warm for her to drink. Let her sleep."

.

.

Dawn found few men standing.

The Mibu captain spat on the ground, futile as the gesture was into the mud - the marsh the ground threatened to become. No sleet now but a constant, merciless rain beat down from heaven. "Koshimizu traitor," he growled at his opponent.

Kenshin did not blink. "Kiyosato samurai," he corrected.

The wolf grinned.

Quicker than Kenshin's eye could follow, he attacked.

Kenshin leapt, on instinct.

He could tell by his heart pounding that he was still alive.

The Mibu captain still lived, turning to face him for a second strike. Kenshin's sword might have grazed him. The way he had stood - he must have been injured earlier in the night. He must have been injured - or Kenshin would be dead.

Kenshin kept watching the man's arms, his feet, waiting for the next attack.

There.

Kenshin let his speed and instinct carry him. Another strike. He had felt his sword strike armor.

Then whirling again against lacquer and steel and glinting eyes, sharp flash of teeth. The same mask as his own. Death giver.

"You have some talent, boy," the Mibu warrior continued, leaping forward again.

A whirlwind of armor and metal. Kenshin was feinting, jumping. The clash of blades.

Kenshin realized he had felt his sword pass through something soft. He saw the Mibu samurai limping. He felt something hot draining down the left side of his face.

"Sir! We're falling back!" A desperate voice from farther across the field.

The warrior pointed his katana straight at Kenshin, streaks of black hair coming loose from his topknot, plastered by the rain nearly over his eyes. "I shall remember you, pup! Mibu Saitoh finishes his battles."

Kenshin could not believe it was over. The battle was over. He still lived. He heard a voice shouting something - it was himself shouting - it may have been his name - in reply.

.

Disarray.

The Mibu attack had come without warning. Their swords, together with the violence of the storm, had decimated the Kiyosato-Koshimizu camp.

The dead were collected into piles. Some townspeople had ventured from behind the walls and were weeping. Some villagers had been slain and robbed. Several of the fields were trampled unto ruin. Couriers, townspeople, and soldiers dragged their feet through pools of muddy water seeping red-tinted around the dead, around the dying.

It was still raining.

The captain, the officers, and the local shaman were standing around the girl.

"A traitor, or a spy. She came to our camp in disguise just before night fell."

"The storm came with her," the shaman offered. "She may be a sorceress."

Herbs were lit. The spirit priest shook his talismans and sang a short prayer. He drew closer to the girl with a smoking brand of twigs, when a sudden wind tore through the tent.

One of the officers tangled his hand into her hair and wrenched her head upward. "Stay still," he growled.

The shaman prayed again as Kaoru struggled in the soldier's grip. He thrust the burning herbs against her neck.

Kaoru shrieked as the pain seared into her. Then an enormous flash of brightness, an echoing boom - a pillar of lightening had struck the ground outside the tent.

The shaman shook his head. "We will need stronger rituals than this."

.


	11. Dreams

They kept Kaoru under guard while they packed up the camp, abandoning the town they had come to claim. The villagers who had helped them begged to come with them, fearing vengeance from the rival clans. The Kiyosato and Koshimizu captains refused. They would have to conserve their resources over the coming months. They could not afford – or did not care to assume – responsibility for any more mouths to feed.

Kaoru was exhausted. One officer - she remembered that his name was Jin-eh - had wanted to torture her. The shaman objected. Fearing her powers, he insisted that they gag her but also treat her with respect. Kaoru wanted to shout in frustration, but she was afraid of her anger. She was afraid of what might happen. She felt lost and weak and uncontrollable.

The captain compromised. The girl would be kept as an honored prisoner. Before restraining her they fed her and bandaged the burn on her throat. They even found dry clothing for her to wear.

Now they were traveling away from the bloodied town, the bloodied fields. Kaoru was carried in a palanquin - to her it was a cage, chilled by the damp wind but dry enough. She moved in the same slow march with the litters bearing wounded soldiers.

Kaoru curled up on her side, as comfortably as she could bound and gagged within her swaying bamboo walls, and slept.

Kaoru dreamed.

.

.

Cold

Cold

White

Dark

Whispering lights

Warm bright moths

Flutter toward her

They are

Extinguished

One by one

.

One is

Brighter

Warmer

He comes nearer

She reaches out to touch him

Her fingers

Linger

Just around his

Warmth

He tells her she is lonely

He tells her she is cold

He looks at her with warmth and

He tells her that he

Her fingers

Touch

He is gone

.

He is gone

.

He had told her she was lonely

.

She is lonely

She is so lonely

She is alone

.

She sees another

Another there – there was another

Red moth

Watching

Red moth

Saw

She spared him then

She can claim him

She can take his

Warmth

.

But

Loss

Lonely

.

She will be lonely

All the same

.

.

Kaoru woke shivering, remembering cold and white and aching, starving emptiness.

She turned in the palanquin and saw the red-haired samurai riding next to her and for a moment her heart stopped - she believed she was still dreaming. Something - she couldn't remember - she must have seen him in her dream.

She must have seen him in her nightmare.

Then she remembered his name. Kenshin. She sat up and would have called to him, but the gag, now damp and cold from her saliva, kept her silent.

He did not turn his head to look at her. Riding to keep pace with her silk-lined cage, he might have been just another guard, but-

"You confessed," he told her.

Kaoru sat up straighter and shook her head.

"You told me that it was you," he continued, slowly, still facing straight ahead, as though speaking to himself. "You insisted it was you alone."

She shook her head again, despairing. _Not me_, she would have told him. _I don't know what it was that I confessed._

She didn't know what she had done. If she had done anything. If someone - something - if something had been done through her. Because of her.

If that destruction had come from her.

She didn't know.

Kenshin turned to stare at her. His eyes - she hadn't noticed before - were such a pale color, some shade of hazel between grey and gold. He bore what looked like a fresh slash down the left side of his face. Dampened by the rain, his hair was the color of rust, the color of slow, dark blood.

He spoke again, quietly. "I don't know why you lied," he told her, "but I believe that you have done no harm." His eyes were asking her something... something else.

Kaoru had no answer.

She wanted to break free.

She wanted the sun to shine again.

.


	12. Waking

Seeing the girl again - sleeping, prisoner, safe in her bindings - Kenshin felt a knot inside himself loosen. He remembered her arms twining around him through the hail and rain, thin arms around his armor, a constant pressure, surprisingly strong. He remembered her wide eyes, insisting that he knew her, insisting that he had some answer.

He had heard rumors of an angry demon. He knew the captain feared that a spirit had sent the storm.

The old man selling cloth had lied to them - lied about the girl, but...

It was him. Something about himself. She had only looked at him.

.

He sensed her shift more than he heard her. The soldiers carrying her palanquin kept walking, disciplined to remain steady, oblivious.

He looked at her then. Those eyes of hers - so open. Kenshin had never met anyone with eyes like hers.

"I don't know why you lied," he heard himself telling her, "but I believe that you have done no harm."

Again some meaning in her glance - if he could hear her... What would she tell him? What did she know?

She hung her head then, her hair falling like a curtain around her face.

Kenshin kicked his horse to join the other samurai.

.

Green fields, gleaming like lichen in the rain. Poor people hurried out of the path as the army marched near. A few merchants approached, carrying food to sell or barter.

Some of the men had taken small treasures from the town - lacquer boxes, jewelry. They stood on the side of the road while the other soldiers kept riding and marching. They stood with helmets in one hand, trinkets in the other, haggling.

Kenshin turned his head away from them.

A woman with dark eyes working in the field met his eyes - a startled glance of fear - before she quickly bowed her head back to her work. Further on, an old woman watched them all pass. Sorrow in her weathered face. Resignation.

So he hadn't changed.

His world hadn't changed.

It was something about the girl.

.

It was evening before he saw her again. The captain had seen to it that she had a tent. "I'll watch her," he told the guard, his voice low.

Heishi huffed. "I'll be just outside. I won't hesitate to stop you if you're bewitched."

Kenshin just rolled his eyes and waited for the other man to leave.

The girl was still, listening. He knelt down next to her and began to untie her.

"If you try to escape, we will stop you. We will hurt you," he assured her. "Even if you call a demon, we will fight until we are dead."

"I don't know anything about demons," she croaked.

"My name is Kenshin," he told her.

"I know. My name is Kaoru."

Kaoru. Watching him, rubbing her wrists, watching him as calmly as if they had known each other all their lives.

"Who are you?"

Her lips twitched as though she would have smiled, or frowned. Her gaze slid to a far corner of the tent. "I don't know. I was wandering in the mountain. I think. I don't remember. It's what they told me, the monks who found me. They named me."

"Why did you come here?"

She shook her head then faced him again. "Only to sell cloth, to bring back tools to the sanctuary."

"Why were you in disguise?"

"For safety on the road."

"How do you know me?"

"I... think I dreamed you." Staring at him then, seeming to beg him to know her, to be known by her. "...Who are you?"

Kenshin found himself remembering every face that had ever looked at him so closely - the women in the fields, the men he had fought. He found himself remembering the silences, the frenzies, the hot splashes of blood. Who was _he_ to _her_..? Who was he but...

"I am a samurai. I am a sword. I'm not alive. I go into every battle already knowing myself dead."

She... She started to weep. Softly. She was weeping.

"I... know you. Somehow. Something in me knows you."

Was there something...? Before the wars, before death, before the daimyo. His mother and his father. Hunger. "I... used to live near a village, when I was small. My parents were peasants."

She was staring at him again. "Perhaps... If I could remember my past..."

Compassion.

Hope.

Sadness.

Compassion and hope and sorrow in her eyes.

He couldn't withstand it. Kenshin closed his eyes.

"You're like... Yahiko. Like you're... bleeding." Her voice soft. He felt the warmth of her hand as a she reached toward him, toward the wound on his cheek, nearly touching him. Loss as she pulled her hand away.

Silence for a moment. Then - "What will happen to me?"

Kenshin opened his eyes. What could he tell her? If the daimyo, if the shamans needed someone to blame for their defeat... And she... She wasn't like anyone else. And she had no one who would avenge her.

"I don't know."

Just then a chill wind rose around them. Kaoru shivered.

"I hate the cold," she told him.

He answered, "Me, too."

.


	13. Day

Kenshin sat outside Kaoru's tent, guarding her, all night. When soldiers came in the morning to bind her hands and gag her again for that day's travel, Kenshin glared at them. The captain was summoned. Kenshin spoke slowly, certain, angry. He was sure that the girl would not harm them, as long as she was guarded, as long as she was treated well.

Captain Katsura had never seen the young warrior so determined. In the years since he had joined their ranks, Kenshin had always been disinterested, detached. He followed the rituals almost too closely - soullessly. He was skilled enough to fight and live to fight again and again - skilled enough to be a great swordsman, someday, if he survived long enough - and he was obedient, but he lived like a soldier already dead.

But now here he stood, the normally emotionless young man suddenly stubborn and proud and nearly simmering with determination. Just like... Shinta, the child he had been, Akira's strange-looking page. Perhaps the storm spirit had recruited him, entranced him - or perhaps it was simply the girl herself - waifish and unrefined as she was, there was something willful and vibrant, something beautiful about her.

Katsura considered the situation. It was dangerous to risk his samurai in the company of a demon, in the company of a pretty girl - but it was also dangerous to risk the anger of the spirits, spirits who might have some grudge against them.

The captain had few options. As always, he had to make the best out of a series of bad choices. His daimyo was closer to death than life, his allies were unstable, his enemies were gaining in strength, and his samurai were dying - both in battles lost and battles won.

Kenshin, the daimyo's foundling, who had never really fit in with the men - the odds were, Kenshin would be lost to them, soon, either way.

If he ordered Kenshin to keep away from the prisoner, Kenshin would obey, but something in the boy would harden, would retreat, and the next battle, or the following one... The boy would be vulnerable. He would be killed, or he would break, or he might simply... fade... as Akira had faded.

Katsura was determined to lose no more than he had to.

He would perform his duty to the best of his abilities, and if he faltered, he would at least retain his honor.

He would bring the girl to the mansion, where the shamans and the daimyo would decide her fate.

In the meantime, Kenshin could stay close to her. It might devastate him to lose her, but better that he should feel pain and outrage than to continue to live as though he were always in battle - continue to exist feeling nothing at all.

.

The clouds broke as the army progressed into the valley. Rays of sunlight danced through the lingering showers of rain.

Kaoru's arms were bound, but her mouth was free, and for that small freedom she was grateful. She knew it was because of Kenshin, who had argued with his captain over her, Kenshin who had won this small battle for her.

He rode next to her, mostly keeping silent, as though he did not know what to do with his victory.

Kaoru did not know what to say. She worried for Genzai and Yahiko and Kohaku. She worried about what they must think, missing her. She wondered if she would see them again.

Her past and her future were blank. For the first time, it almost didn't bother her. She breathed in the cool air - autumn air, hastened by the storm - and watched the play of light and shadow in the clouds. She watched the peasants in the fields and wondered about their lives. Even the conversation of the soldiers around her - their groans and their curses and their coarse jokes and their laughter - it all seemed... precious. Even the pain.

It felt... _right_ to her... to be alive. It felt _right_ to be on this journey.

Kenshin, solemn as always in his armor and his weapons, riding next to her, protecting her, if only with his presence - even if she never saw him smile - she only wished he could feel what she was feeling.

If words could give him a taste of this feeling...

"Kenshin?"

He turned to her, his expression guarded.

"No matter what happens... It was beautiful."

"What?"

She smiled sadly, wistfully. "This life... The hills, the smells, the sounds, the people who have been kind to me, even the people who were not so kind... It's really... beautiful."

Kenshin frowned. He took a breath, waited. Finally he closed his eyes and shook his head. "It isn't beautiful," he said. "It's ugly. And eventually it will kill you."

Then he raised his head and looked at her with such intensity - "If something happens to you, I will remember you every day that I am alive. I will honor you every day I live."

Pain. Pain in his voice, for her. Pain in her heart, for him. Empathy echoing between them.

Kaoru shook her head, but she could only accept this gift.

She bowed to him. "Thank you."

.

They arrived at the daimyo's mansion the following day. Kaoru was taken to one of the inner rooms while Kenshin attended to his material and ceremonial duties along with the other samurai.

Sitting in the shrine with the others, when he should have been purifying his soul, Kenshin only felt like a storm should have risen then, around him. He felt that he had enough anger and despair within himself to generate hail and lightening.

What would they do to her? What could he do to stop them? He had no clout. He was close to no one.

This was his clan. He was only alive because of the Kiyosato daimyo. He had killed for the Kiyosato. He would die for the Kiyosato.

If they wanted her blood...

If the head shaman decided that their rituals required her blood...

Kenshin knew he would watch in dutiful silence.

He would rage in dutiful silence.

He would mourn.

.


	14. The mansion in the valley

"It isn't beautiful," Kenshin had said. "It's ugly."

Fed, washed, ritually clothed, nearly choked with purifying smoke by silent priestesses - silent women with silent voices, silent faces - Kaoru thought that perhaps Kenshin was right. Perhaps it was all ugliness and would end in death.

But Kaoru felt a growing certainty that everything would be all right.

Even waiting, and waiting, in this house in this valley - quiet spaces shadowed and still and familiar, as Kenshin had been familiar. Familiar as her nightmares.

Perhaps she was simply going mad.

Then so be it.

A courtier shuffled in. He seemed solemn, hesitant, almost afraid. He glanced at her face for a moment and then looked meekly to the floor. "It's time."

.

The great hall seemed to be vibrating as they entered. Shamans were shaking prayer sticks along the sides of the room. Rows of court attendants sat with their heads bowed. In the front, near the dais, an elegantly robed priestess took up the corner. She sat with her eyes closed, serene and still, her low voice murmuring powerful prayers.

She opened her eyes when Kaoru was brought before them. She did not alter the tone or rhythm of her low, slow chanting, but her eyebrows lifted slightly, as though she might grimace, or laugh.

Kaoru raised her head higher.

Behind the priestess, the old daimyo sat still as a stone, still as a spider, on his dais. Kaoru had not even seen him at first. He wore dark-stained ceremonial robes embroidered with the seal of his clan. His shape was obscured by trails of incense smoke and the grey shadows of the wan, overcast, quietly dying afternoon.

His voice came as a rasp over the hum of rattles and chanting. "My head shaman will examine you. She will not harm you. Do not resist."

The woman rose and stepped gracefully before Kaoru. She was singing low words of a language Kaoru did not understand. Like the shaman in the camp, she carried a smoldering bundle of herbs, but these she merely waved gently, creating a wreath between them and then a series of characters or signs. Kaoru held herself still and stared at the woman, but she might as well have been a statue for all the personal notice the head shaman took of her.

Finally the priestess gripped something in the sleeve of her robe and then smeared her fingers across Kaoru's forehead. When she pulled back her hand, it was stained thinly with blood.

The priestess had stopped chanting. She stood over Kaoru in silence, peering into her, distracted, as though she were a monk contemplating an ancient script, or as though she were listening for a faraway sound.

Kaoru listened. She couldn't hear anything. She felt numb and dizzy, but that could have been the incense, her bravery or her fear.

After a long silence, the priestess abruptly spun around to face the dais. "My Lord," she stridently declared, "don't be fooled by costume and theatricals. Your warriors only wish to distract you from their failure. This is no sorceress. This is nothing but a sun-burnt, half-starved peasant."

"Discretion, Megumi," the old man warned.

"This girl is not the cause of the monsoon, nor of the Mibu wolves."

"Silence! Of course this girl has nothing to do with the Mibu." The old man slowly pulled himself to his feet. This seemed to cause a reverberation, a dull shudder throughout the room.

"Leave us. All of you. Leave." The shamans waving their sticks, the attendants, even the captain who had brought Kaoru in as his prisoner obediently bowed and began to file out.

"And you, Megumi. You leave, too. I know you speak the truth."

The priestess stiffened a moment, as though she would argue, but then she dropped into an elegant bow. She straightened and, without glancing further at Kaoru, disappeared into the corridor.

The old man stepped forward slowly, listening to the floorboards of the corridor creak distantly as the last of the attendants and the priestess made their exit. Then he turned to Kaoru. He approached so close she could have counted his wrinkles. For the first time, she noticed the cataracts that clouded his eyes.

"I've seen you," he said, his voice gentle. "I've seen you here before."

"Sir," Kaoru half gasped. _How could you know me? How could you see me?_ It hurt - a small, sharp stab - so close to what she no longer even hoped to hear."I don't remember anything before a few months ago. Monks on the mountainside found me-"

"No. You may not remember, but you know." The old man smiled then, his wrinkles creasing. "You miss him, young woman. That is why you returned." He turned to walk away from her. "Come. I'll take you to his grave."

Before she could protest, he took her hand and led her out into the corridor, old, dark wood that whispered under their feet. They moved through the shadows of the mansion until they came to a porch that opened onto a courtyard. Dusk had fallen so that it was difficult for her to distinguish shapes amongst the storm-stripped bushes and trees of the garden, but the old man pointed, unerring.

"There. The stone marker. There he is."

Standing next to the daimyo, Kaoru wrapped her arms around herself, and the branches of the courtyard seemed to rustle and sigh in the sudden, chill breeze.

.

Kaoru listened as the daimyo told her about his son.

At first she had been afraid that the old man was as mad as she was, but as he spoke it became obvious that what mattered to him was simply that someone share his love, his pain. Perhaps he was a bit mad, but because of his position, he probably could not talk like this with anyone else in the household.

His son sounded like he had been a kind man, a loving man. Too good-natured to feel an insult, too warm-hearted to deliver one.

Kaoru gathered that he had died young.

But it was cold in this place. Cold among these shadows, this dying light, cold in this garden with the breeze that seemed to be whispering spell words to the dying leaves. Cold surrounding that stone in the far corner of the courtyard.

Kaoru thought of Kenshin and the daimyo and wondered if this entire household was haunted, or cursed. The old man was still speaking of his dead son, and Kaoru felt her heart suddenly throbbing out of rhythm and she wished that this entire mansion could be torn down.

That sunlight could find every shadow.

"Young woman, you are a guest here," the old man was saying. Mad, he must be mad. He had forgotten that she was a prisoner. "I will have a servant show you to your room."

The old man was mad, but he was their leader. Perhaps there was hope that Kaoru could escape.

.

A young girl carrying a lantern stepped forward at the old man's command. Like nearly everyone else in this place, she seemed timid, withdrawn.

Kaoru followed the girl to a room alongside the courtyard. She felt nervous even as the girl bowed to her goodnight and left her with the lamp. More uncertainty. This was yet another unknown. At least there was nothing to fear here but an empty room. Kaoru chided herself for her foolishness.

She entered the room and immediately stiffened, even before she understood what she was seeing. A shape. A person. The person stepped forward, into the lamp light.

It was the priestess.

Kaoru opened her mouth to demand an explanation, but the priestess spoke first.

"What did the daimyo say to you?"

So, someone had been watching. Someone had control. Someone who might decide to kill her after all. "...He spoke about his son."

"I see..." The priestess frowned and took a step forward - peering at Kaoru, again, as though she were searching for something. Suddenly she lifted her head, stood taller.

"Lady." She seemed to be addressing Kaoru, but her eyes were focused... just behind her, or... inside... her. To Kaoru's horror, the priestess then dipped into a low bow. "I pray that you will remember the slight service I have tried to render you."

Kaoru wanted to move, wanted to shake the woman speaking so strangely, wanted to shake herself out of this dream that kept slipping into a nightmare, but the feeling was so strange - dizzy again, numb, like before.

"And you," the woman said, resuming her upright, even imperious, posture. The bizarre moment had ended. The priestess was looking directly at her now, an arch to her brow that seemed to suggest humor and disdain. "I don't know why you're here, but you would do well to make the most of the time you have."

"What do you mean?" Kaoru found her voice. It was shaking. "What the spirits is going on? Who were you talking to? Was it me? Something inside me? What is it? What am I?"

The priestess smiled a bit and shook her head. "...No. It's better for you that you don't know... No, just accept that you are protected and forget about it."

"Protected by what? What are you talking about? Who am I? Why am I protected?"

"Have some wit, girl, and listen to good advice!" the woman snapped. "Don't bother about mysteries. It doesn't matter, anyway. Soon all of this will end. Everything in this place will be destroyed."

"What? How?" Kaoru could imagine sunlight and shadows and blood and... Kenshin... Fighting. Dying. Because of her? Was it her fault?

"Our allies the Koshimizu have been betrayed," Megumi was saying. "The Mibu and Makimachi are coming in force, and they are strong enough now to defeat us. Some will flee and some will stay and fight. Either way, we are finished."

"...And what about me?"

Megumi smiled wickedly, graciously. "You are our honored guest. And you're protected. I doubt even the Mibu could touch you. You are the safest of us all."

.


	15. Hearth

...

After leaving the girl, Megumi stopped in the courtyard. She knelt on the earth, in the dark, before the stone marker. It was so quiet. Hushed. It was like he was there, listening, waiting, calm and patient as always. Patient and peaceful and stubborn as that stone. Damn him.

Megumi sighed and closed her eyes. She might have tried to conjure him, capture him, but she knew he was gone father than her powers could reach. And even if he lingered, he would not speak to her.

"What was it you fell into, Kiyosato? Why did you force me to make that promise? What have you brought on us?"

Silence, as she expected. Even the insects had gone quiet in the cold. Silence but for the gentle whisper of a heartless breeze.

...

...

After a fitful sleep, Kaoru woke with the new day dawning.

She understood that she was in the daimyo's villa.

She believed that the shamaness would not harm her.

She was a guest.

She was a prisoner.

Either way, Kaoru felt that something, some power had had drawn her here - something that would not simply let her leave.

The wolves were coming.

She dressed quietly. Wanting to avoid spirit-talkers and soldiers and politicians, she crept around the covered walkways of the mansion, through a morning grey and damp with dew and fog, until she found the path to the kitchen.

Inside it was bright and rich-smelling and warm.

"Excuse me..."

The kitchen servants stopped their work and stared. "Are you lost... ma'am?"

"Um... Not exactly. The daimyo and the head shaman... they say I am a guest, but I don't know anyone, and I don't have anything to do... I thought perhaps I could... help. Please, I don't want to be a bother, but I'm just... lonely... and bored." She smiled and tried to seem innocent, harmless - what she had been, when she had first lost her memory.

The women kept staring, but one girl spoke up boldly. "You're the sorcoress."

"No!" Kaoru insisted. "At least... I don't think so. I don't know anything about spirits or demons or magic."

"Well," another woman, who seemed to be in charge, spoke: "Do you know anything about chopping vegetables?"

...

After they had shown her, a few times - the proper way to hold the radish, move her fingers, hold the knife - really she was ruining more food than she was preparing, but something about her led people to forgive her, help her, trust her - after they had shown her, a few times, how to chop properly, and Kaoru was finally making slow but acceptable progress through a platter of root vegetables, she started to ask, "What will happen...?"

"Yes?" Okohira, the mistress of the kitchen, asked from the vicinity of the soup pot.

"What will happen... It's just... At the other town, there was a battle, and, from what was said, I mean, I wonder... What will happen... if enemy soldiers come?"

The olther girls grew quiet while Okohira began to ladel the soup into a heavy iron bowl heated with coals to keep the daimyo's breakfast warm. "...What have you heard?"

Kaoru gave a stilted answer - hearsay - the soldiers, the shamans. The Mibu and Mackimachi had joined forces. Something had happened to the Koshimizu. It could be... disaster... for the Kiyosato.

Okohira put the finishing touches on the daimyo's breakfast table. The younger women began to prepare rows of trays for the soldiers' meal.

"What will happen is... what has always happened," Okohira spoke. "Many will be killed. Some will be injured. Their soldiers may rape some women. Much will be stolen. Perhaps the estate will survive and there will be a new master, but almost certainly some stores will be pillaged, some fields will be trampled, and next winter more of the people will go hungry."

"And isn't there anything... anyone can do?"

Okohira glanced at her almost with pity. "Nothing. Nothing but pray for an honorable death. Come, Mirine, Ayame," she spoke to the girls. "It's time." She picked up the daimyo's table and moved to the door. "Not you, miss. It was bad enough that you helped prepare the food." She softened her words with a smile. "You mustn't be seen to serve it."

...

Brighter and warmer since she had entered the kitchen - more like daylight than the murky dawn, but the sky was overcast. The light was still grey. At least the rain had stopped, for a while.

It promised to be a dreary day, but still Kaoru could see that someone had taken care of this land. It was subtle, but the earth all around the estate had been cultivated, like a garden. Each turn in the corridors and the pathways around the mansion opened onto a different feeling, a different view.

Kaoru heard a group of people approaching and stepped quickly around one of the side porches to avoid them, and she almost walked right into - warm eyes. His eyes warmer than she remembered them - gazing at her, seeing her, warm and relieved and pleased.

The samurai.

Kenshin.

He was holding her arms, as she had startled when she saw him and might have stumbled, but he was still holding her arms, as he had done the night of the battle, the night of the storm, but now with warmth and relief in his eyes.

"You're alive."

...

...


	16. Harvest

Author's note: I'm back in business! I have free time again, and I think my muse has returned. Optimistic prediction: several updates in the next month or so, enough to finish this story and take us home. Also, I've decided that this website really hates my formatting for some reason – every several months I lose special characters or spacing. This time I had to go in and reformat almost all of the old chapters of Yuki Onna - most vexing.

…

Harvest

.

_The millet sheaths grow high all around him, and the cicadas sing a constant droning prayer as he works. _

_It has been an unusually long summer, full of fleeting storms that drenched the earth. Their harvest is a rich one this year._

_She calls him from the porch to their house, calling him to come and eat, but he isn't ready to come in. He will work as long as there is light and even after. This season, not a single stalk will go to waste. _

_She calls again, and he smiles to himself. She is frustrated not to be working beside him, but he had refused to let her join him in the field. Their child might arrive any day now - she is constantly grumbling to herself from the heaviness, the changes to her body, the waiting, the heat. He alone will bring in the harvest, and as he works he prays with hope in his heart that the birth will be an easy one. It is time enough, he thinks. Tomorrow early in the morning he will fetch the old woman to stay with them until the baby comes. _

"_Shinta! I won't wait up for you and your supper will be cold!"_

_Even asleep, she will stir as soon as he joins her - she always does - and his supper will be warm enough at the end of long day's labor, in the lingering evening heat. The farmer who had been a samurai continues to smile to himself and then complacently answers, "Hai!" _

.

Two years before:

.

She was alive. She was wandering freely about the manor. She was safe.

Kenshin was so surprised to see her he could not hear if she had spoken. He was holding her arms like he had forgotten how to move while she stared at him in amazement and it must have been improper, to touch her, to hold her, but he didn't care. She was alive.

She was saying something about food. Her face was flushed.

He let go of her arms, but as he did so he knew, for the first time, that she must be his. No one he cared about had ever stayed alive before. She was supernatural. She came from no earthly family. She had survived the shamans and the daimyo. She spoke to him and saw him – not a sword, not a soldier, not a killer, but _him_ – she must be his. She must have known this before he did. She was his.

This calmed him.

Kenshin took a deep breath and realized she had stuttered and mumbled something about breakfast. It was ready for him and his fellow samurai in the hall. He took a step back and bowed his head sharply in assent.

"Hai."

But he couldn't help watching her – several heartbeats he raised his head and watched her, her bright eyes, her throat as she swallowed, the rhythm of her movements as she breathed – alive, miraculously, she was alive – before he turned to leave.

.

_Grandmother arrives and Kaoru weeps in her surprise. Shinta feels a pang of guilt. He hadn't realized that she must be frightened, must have been hiding her fear. _

_He cannot think about what might happen. He cannot think about his own fear._

_Grandmother scolds him out of their modest house, and it is with eagerness that Shinta goes to take up his work in the field._

_._

During breakfast Katsura stood up and told them that the Makimachi and the Mibu were riding into the valley, that half the Koshimizu clan had already been murdered in their beds.

Kenshin felt his mind go blank, but not with his usual resignation. It was a white hot certainty that he would cut down anyone who attempted to harm her.

He knew that he would die. Everything would end.

Everything had been leading up to this: he would die.

She would live.

.

_Two days later, Shinta is pulling down the last section of millet when he hears the first scream. He doesn't remember running to the house, but he is standing, panting, in the doorway and he can see Kaoru gleaming with a sheen of sweat, and her eyes are pleading with him, and the old woman is frowning at him, telling him something he doesn't want to hear, and Kenshin, for the first time in months, wants to reach for his sword. _

"_Shinta, go. I'll be all right. Go."_

_Kaoru, his wife, smiles weakly at him, and he is terrified. _

"_You can help your wife best by keeping busy, away from here, by bringing in the harvest to feed your family," the old woman says._

_Kaoru is grimacing in pain and it is like a knife driving into his skull. She opens her eyes and pleads with him. "Please. Shinta. Kenshin. I'll be fine, but you need to go."_

_He opens his mouth, but the old woman is there and he has no words and anything he would have said has dried to dust in his throat._

_He knows how to obey even when it kills him._

_He cannot help her. He cannot protect her. He cannot fight her pain._

_He cannot watch her bite her lip. He cannot stay and listen to her scream. (He could, but she doesn't want him here.)_

_He goes._

.

He found Kaoru in the yard around midday. He was wearing his armor. He had been cleaning his weapons and learning his orders. He had been helping to prepare.

He touched her arm and looked into her eyes and told her, "I will protect you."

He could see the fear and confusion in her eyes. "Kenshin... I'm worried about you - you and everyone else."

"No... This is a war, and people will die, but you are unlike everyone else. I will fight to protect you."

Tears were welling in her eyes. Kenshin couldn't remember the last time he had comforted or been comforted by anyone, but suddenly she was in his arms, wrapping her arms around his lacquer armor, holding him while he eased his arms around her shoulders and pressed his lips against her hair.

He couldn't feel her through his armor, but he knew that she was warm. He thought he heard thunder. Always, with her, the storms.

She pulled back and she was gazing at him and he realized he'd been wrong - he was _hers;_ he'd been _hers_ all along. "Kenshin, be safe," she whispered.

He didn't hear "Goodbye."

.


	17. The sword that protects

.

Kenshin left, so certain of the coming deaths, and Kaoru felt her entire body grow cold.

She didn't want to survive with a slaughter all around her. She didn't want to watch as everyone else fell. She didn't want to watch him drive his sword into a dozen men, fighting to his last breath, until he was cut down.

So many people.

It wasn't right, to wait like this. These wars would never end. She hated to see the warmth drain out of his eyes. She hated thinking of the bodies she had seen. She hated thinking of all the defenseless people who would die.

There must be something someone could do. Someone had to do something.

Kaoru couldn't sit and wait for death to come.

So she moved. Before she thought of what she was doing, she was walking, and when she opened her mouth to people, the words simply came.

She said, "We must get away. This is not your battle. There must be somewhere to get away, someplace for the servants to hide." Kaoru went to the kitchens and the stables and the servants' quarters. Some of them frowned at her or cursed her for her disloyalty, but some narrowed their eyes and nodded. Some had already taken their belongings and fled.

Everyone was frantic preparing for battle or praying. Courtiers hurried from building to building along the walkways damp from the mists and the sprinkling rain. The samurai plodded through the courtyards with their armor and their swords, wearing paths of mud through the gardens.

With so many servants and noblewomen running around, Kaoru imagined that no one took notice of her wandering, until a shadow fell over her. White garments. A long sweep of black hair. The lingering scent of incense. The shaman.

"Where do you think you're going?" Megumi demanded.

"I don't know," Kaoru answered.

Megumi peered down at her in silence, blocking her way, until Kaoru felt the urge to simply shove the other woman aside. She had no time for this.

"You will all starve," Megumi finally said, "if you aren't slaughtered first. You will find no comfort in the villages. They will be too frightened to help you." Then, worse, she began to smile, and Kaoru felt her heart throb in hopelessness and anger and she wanted to strike the priestess.

"...I underestimated you," the shaman continued. "I never guessed you would try to help these people who mean nothing to you. You are a strange girl, foundling."

Then she turned around abruptly and began walking toward the storage sheds. She called without turning, "Come with me."

Kaoru hesitated, and Megumi slowed. She turned. "Come with me," she spoke again. "You'll only get everyone killed doing it your way. I can see to it that you and your flock of traitors at least have a chance to survive."

.


	18. Go

.

"You can take as much food as you can carry without sacrificing too much speed, and I'll give you something of my personal wealth. There is an old, abandoned shrine up in the mountain. You can probably shelter a dozen people there." Megumi stared at her as she spoke this, weighing her, as always, but she seemed increasingly satisfied with what she saw. "There are one or two old servants who know the way," she continued, "and some young men from the stable who know how to fight and have little loyalty here. I will release them to accompany you."

Kaoru put a hand on the shaman's arm and met her eyes. "Save yourself as well. Come with us."

Megumi laughed. "Abandon the daimyo? Abandon my honor? Abandon the last fight? Never."

So the supplies were gathered, quickly, and the servants who had responded to Kaoru's words gathered around the wagons carrying small bundles of personal belongings. They were mostly women with infants and children, two strong boys, and one old woman who sat on the wagon with her granddaughter. She would direct them.

Megumi pressed a cloth bag heavy with currency into Kaoru's hands. "Guard this," she murmured. A couple of rough-looking, well muscled young men approached them. The more handsome one was frowning softly, the tall one outright glowering at the ground. Megumi yanked the surly one down to her and growled something low and fierce into his ear. The young man sneered and clenched his fists but nodded sharply and took his place near the rear cart while Megumi watched him. Kaoru noticed that he carried a large bundle that gleamed metal through its bindings - it looked almost like a farming tool beaten into a weapon.

There was one errand Kaoru still had to complete. She prayed she could find him quickly.

.

The samurai were just finishing their final ritual. Kenshin knelt with the others, casting his soul into his sword and accepting his death. He stood with the others in the smoke and silence of the hall. The daimyo blessed them, and then they were out, in the fleeting sunlight, mounting their horses or finding their lines.

"Kenshin!"

Some of the men around him turned to him and glared. Some stared at her in astonishment and made gestures to protect themselves against witchcraft.

She was close to him, touching him, and Kenshin felt her presence as an echo of the life he had just abandoned. He ached with it and forgot, for a moment, that he was dead.

"Kenshin," she murmured to him, "there's an abandoned shrine in the mountains. Some of the old servants know of it. After the battle..." She pulled back and stared at him, willing him – the blood beating in his heart, the light in his eyes, _him_, what he was to her – willing him to live, willing him to survive. "After the battle, that's where I'll be."

Then she was gone, and Kenshin wanted to run after her. He wanted to go back into the hall and redo the ritual to banish his heart, banish his soul.

He was still a young warrior, and he felt giddy with the knowledge that she had a plan, the hope that she would survive this, but his heart sank with misgivings for himself - this wasn't how a battle should begin.

.


	19. Slay every evil

.

Saitoh Hajime, samurai, loyal retainer of the Mibu daimyo and captain of the Mibu wolves, surveyed his realm.

It was a small domain, today consisting of a few hills and the sloping descent into a valley. It produced no grain, contained no farmers or artisans. It commanded no servants or shamans or slaves. Saitoh's realm harbored only samurai, and its only harvests were blood, bodies, and the spoils of war.

Horsemen and archers and standard-bearers shifted within the confines of their formation before him. His elite wolves waited close to him, ready and eager to pick out the most skilled warriors of the opposing side. To his right, the Makimachi forces formed a dense cloud of black-cad warriors. Fighters from the Shinomori clan had recently joined their ranks. Their captain was a young man who spoke little and fought with precision. Saitoh approved of him. His calm leadership balanced the disorder Saitoh had sometimes observed among the Makimachi.

During the assault on the Koshimizu, Saitoh had personally stalked through the panic-filled halls and called out every traitorous ex-samurai to fight for the weight of his sin while the Shinomori and Makimachi soldiers slipped into the shadows and executed the cowards who tried to flee.

To uphold his own honor, to cleanse the land of those who polluted the code of bushido – it had been a satisfying night.

But today was a new day, a new field. Today was warfare in the pure sense. The Kiyosato had fought long and well, but they were weak and no longer worthy of their land. Today was a day for many honorable deaths.

The Kiyosato samurai had appeared over the horizon and were approaching the field, forming a defensive line.

The corner of Saitoh's mouth lifted in a hint of a grin.

The battle had begun.

.

Kenshin heard the running and saw the mass of soldiers and samurai approaching. He sensed the samurai around him prepare for the attack, and he moved his body in the same fashion.

Then there was chaos all around him, and at the first scream of pain, Kenshin felt his blood run cold. He ran and struck and killed the same as the others, faster than the others, as he always had.

He met a man's eyes, and he felt like vomiting, but he ran forward and thrust his sword into the man's neck and killed him, and before the man had fallen to the ground Kenshin had spun around to find another enemy.

As he always had.

One. Two. Three. Black clad warriors. All determined. Strong fighters. All dead.

One young warrior shrieked in fury at such carnage and leapt down from his horse and he was so slight Kenshin thought he must be a child. Though he wore a mass of elaborate armor, he sprinted around other warriors, probably his guards, who were reacting too slowly to stop him. Kenshin recognized the courtly seal of the Makimachi.

Kenshin readied his stance to kill in one strike the young Makimachi prince rushing toward him, but then another warrior galloped through the fray and pulled the prince onto his horse. Carrying him to safer ground.

Kenshin felt relieved.

For a moment he heard nothing and felt nothing but relief, but then a choking noise caught his attention. Katsura, his captain, falling, an enemy sword slipping from his neck.

Katsura, his captain, gushing blood.

Katsura, his captain, dead.

While Kenshin had stood yards away, in a daze.

"Himura Kenshin." The enemy spoke. Kenshin recognized him as the Mibu who had scarred his face the night of the storm, the night of Kaoru - the man who would have killed Kenshin if he hadn't been slowed by an injury. Today he was standing firmly on both legs, completely healed.

Kenshin saw his death in those narrowed eyes.

"Wolf captain," he offered in response.

"You were once a promising warrior, Kiyosato samurai, but it seems your spirit is waning." The wolf sneered. "I do not tolerate weakness in my enemies."

Kenshin nodded. He knew how to accept his death.

"Test me, then."

And before the Mibu could answer Kenshin sprinted toward him, jumped higher than he ever had, and drove his sword down.

Steel on steel, sparking and screeching. The Mibu captain laughing.

Kenshin darted behind him and struck again.

Fighting, and Kenshin was fast, but the Mibu captain was stronger than he had been. He shoved against a strike and slashed Kenshin deep into his thigh.

Another strike, and another, and Kenshin fought with speed and focus as he always had, even though the wolf had the greater skill.

Finally they had parted a few feet, staring at each other. The rest of the battle had moved on from them, falling back toward the manor.

Kenshin stood there bleeding, sucking in his breath, and the Mibu captain was bleeding, but he stood calm and strong and readied his sword for the final strike.

Kenshin saw how the blow would fall, and his hand itched in instinct of where to raise his sword. He couldn't stop the Mibu sword, but he could strike through the attack. They would both go down.

And Kaoru would weep for him.

Kaoru would be alone.

Alone in the winter.

Surrounded by wolves.

No.

No.

_No_.

Kenshin snarled and shouted and sprinted forward, faster than he thought possible and - impact - steel punching through lacquer. A crunch.

Kenshin stood, panting, shaking and bleeding. Silence behind him. He turned around and looked.

The Mibu captain lay dead.

A smile on the dead man's face.

Another dead.

Kenshin felt empty and ill.

But he had survived this fight.

.


	20. Gathering shades

.

.

The clap of a prayer stick.

She is in the great hall.

The shadows  
the droning humming prayers of the shamans  
the half-dead daimyo  
the haughty priestess -

Outside is  
Chaos  
Carnage

Here there is  
Restraint

And this time she is standing with them  
Silent  
staring out from the shadows.

Mortal men are approaching -

mortal  
weak  
ephemeral  
Shadows

At the far end of the hall, the shadow-men find their places and bow.

The daimyo turns to look at her.

She bestows her regard upon him.

Half-dead old human.  
His soul wheezing;  
its breath is cold.

He speaks to her.

The shadow-men kneel,  
waiting.

His skull smiles its death grin  
And he tells her,

"I knew you would return."

.

"Missy! Hey, Missy!"

Kaoru startled, turned her head, nearly stumbled over a root in their path. "What?"

"Aren't you supposed to be leading us? You hardly look awake. This damn cart is heavy enough without us carrying you if you pass out."

Kauro realized she was confronted by the same ruffian the priestess had spoken harsh words to. It had probably served him right. It was bad enough they were striking out alone, with the battle behind them, possibly destroying everything they had known. Bad enough, traveling through dangerous country, miserable weather, with winter approaching. They were all frightened. Why did this man have to make it worse?

"Look, Sir-"

The young man laughed bitterly and sneered his reply. "Sir nothing, your ladyship. The name Sanosuke is rich enough for me."

"Look, Sanosuke, we've got a long road ahead of us. Why don't you just worry about your end of this caravan and I'll worry about mine? Nobody's going to pass out." At least she really hoped so.

He grimaced at her. "Whatever you say, Ladyship."

"And it's Kaoru, just Kaoru."

He huffed, but then turned his focus back to his corner of the cart, helping to push it over rocks and through the mud, muttering to himself.

Kaoru glared at him a moment for good measure, then glanced at the other members of the party to see what they made of the exchange. The old woman sitting on top of the cart seemed to be smirking. The little girl, her granddaughter, was asleep. The other young man pushing the cart was watching Sanosuke. Other than that, no one else appeared to have paid attention. Naturally, they all had heavier things on their minds. What was Sanosuke's problem, anyway? So she'd been distracted. Kaoru couldn't even remember what her thoughts had been - just something about the villa, something about the attack.

Naturally she felt tired and cold, just like everyone else.

She was leaving behind the only person she'd ever felt she'd known, and the future before her was just as dark and uncertain as it had ever been.

Kaoru refused to dwell on what might happen, what might have already happened - she just hoped Kenshin would catch up with them soon.

.

.

Kenshin was racing toward the manor, where the battle had descended, where the battle was consuming and destroying everything it touched.

_Are you thinking to take her from me again?_

Suddenly he stopped and spun around. He thought he'd heard something, but he could see no one. Misty, drizzly rain and fog made some of the distant hills difficult to discern.

But something in the corner of his eye - Kenshin turned and gripped his sword before he understood what he saw. A samurai approaching. The man must have been hiding among the fallen.

Something about his stance - for a moment Kenshin was certain... but that was impossible. Kenshin felt himself weakening. He must be losing too much blood. He shook his head to clear it and crouched low, gathering his strength, prepared to run forward, prepared to draw his sword and strike.

Kenshin squinted to make out the face of the approaching samurai, but even when the man stopped, standing tall, his face seemed to be veiled by shadow. Then he spoke, and his voice shuddered through the rain like an echo.

"Kenshin," Akira addressed him. He bowed in a courtly greeting. Kenshin froze.

"I should hate you, Kohai, but I don't. I don't begrudge you all you have been given, even what should have been mine." Smiling. That same easy smile in his voice. "In fact, I thank you for your service."

He spoke lightly, as he always had, and Kenshin almost choked with sudden emotion. He felt like a boy again. He wanted to approach his sempai, his older brother, wanted to touch his face, wanted to shout at his betrayal, wanted to punch him.

But then Akira lost his gentle manner. He shook his head in warning, bent his knees, and readied his sword for the strike.

"For abandoning us," he spoke in the formal tongue, "for taking her away, for the dishonor you bring, I must fight you."

_You're a ghost,_ Kenshin remembered in protest, but then Akira was sprinting toward him and Kenshin shouted and leapt forward in response and the crash of steel on steel was as solid as anything Kenshin had ever known.

.


	21. The last battle

.

The crash of steel on steel. Kenshin was quicker than his dead sempai, but Akira's movements were precise, certain.

_I will stop you, ghost or no. I will survive long enough to protect her_.

Another clash. Another blow. Kenshin felt the rain and the blood from his earlier wound soaking his tunic beneath the leather and the lacquer, trickling down his skin.

Akira was grinning at him. He seemed not to weaken at all.

_I will survive this_.

A final burst, they rushed toward each other and Kenshin roared and used all his strength to thrust his sword into Akira's chest. He ripped it sideways and felt the flesh and armor give. Akira fell, swinging his sword toward Kenshin's face.

Akira hit the ground and lay still, his chest torn open, a dark shadow in the rain. Could you kill a man already dead?

"You have defeated your own prince, Kenshin." He could still speak, softly, still smiling. "You must abandon your name. Go to her. I'll let you take her, because I know you will lose her in the end."

Kenshin stepped closer to where Akira lay on the ground. His body was a mass of shadows – a muddy hollow. No body. No blood. There was nothing.

Kenshin noticed that his face was stinging. He raised his hand and felt a slash across his cheek where Akira had struck him.

_Take her_, he had said. _I__'ll let you take her_.

Let him? How? Why?

_You will lose her_.

Kenshin blinked away his disquiet. He felt exhausted. He could not understand.

Around him he saw only rain and mud and blood and the bodies of the men who had fallen. The battle was over. In the distance he could see banners of the enemy studding the grounds around the mansion. He saw no signs of any of his clansmen alive.

It was over.

She had said she would escape to an old shrine. That's where she would be.

The battle was lost.

It was over.

Kenshin shuddered from relief, exhaustion.

It was over.

_Abandon your name_.

Kenshin came to a decision. In one movement he lifted his free hand and his sword above his head and sliced through the topknot that bound his long, rain-drenched hair.

Its weight fell from him.

He was no longer Kiyosato, no longer Kenshin.

It was over.

He had no clan, no family.

He closed his eyes and collapsed to the ground.

He was free.

.


	22. The last Kiyosato

Even as they heard cries of battle and the shrieks and curses of the dying - in the distance, in the valley, in the courtyard, in the villa itself - Megumi and her fellow shamans underwent their ritual as planned.

Incense. The shaking of rattles and the droning of prayers. Burning herbs.

And blood.

Rivulets of blood

One by one.

Bleeding.

Growing still.

Becoming silent.

The room was silent but for Megumi's moaning, tuneless singing by the time Shinomori Aoshi and his men entered the hall.

Aoshi put his arm out swiftly, to stop them.

The shamaness knelt, surrounded by corpses, her robes staining darker and darker - kneeling and praying in the middle of a floor - a pool - darkly gleaming from wall to wall, spreading in the shadows, creeping toward their feet, a slick carpet of blood.


	23. The last breath

.

The priestess stilled her praying and opened her eyes, dark with hatred. "You are wise to hesitate, young man."

Directly behind her, on a dais, Aoshi noticed the body of an old man. He recognized the Kiyosato daimyo, the front of his most ceremonial wardrobe drenched in blood.

"Did you think to take this villa?" the shaman continued, her voice sharp. "Did you think to make it a prize to your bride?" Her eyes glinted, and Aoshi stilled his fear. Only a few within their clans knew about the arrangement between himself and Misao.

"I pray that you make a misstep, young Captain." Her lips twisted in a smile. "I pray that your hubris is great."

Aoshi finally found his voice. "No dishonor is intended toward this clan."

Megumi's face twisted. She chuckled. She bowed her head and laughed.

Bleeding.

Bleeding from her throat while her hands lay clenched at her sides.

The pool of blood growing, staining the walls in a slow, seeping climb.

Laughter. A rumbling sound from the body of the daimyo. Dry, whispering rattles from the bodies of the priests.

The bodies began to smoke. Charring. The scent of spirit herbs.

The victors ran.

.

As soon as he was outside, where bodies lay still and steamed and stank as they were supposed to, Shinomori Aoshi immediately sent word to make sure that Makimachi Misao was untouched by any obvious curses. It was reported that she was whole and safe and angry at what she perceived as his overprotective concern.

Reassured, Aoshi then turned to the urgent task of burning the entire villa to the ground.

.


	24. Survivors

.

The gods had despised the Kiyosato. Those higher beings held in contempt every crawling mortal person and every blade of grass that the people were foolish enough to call their own. The dips of the valleys, the glistening, rippling streams - they were only paths and pools for all the eddying waste and evil and refuse of the mountain spirits, the earth gods, the sky.

That was what Sagara Sanosuke believed.

He couldn't even look at the women around him. Women were the worst. Always working, always trying to play the game - bring in the harvest, appease the gods. Escape. Survive.

And this little one, this storm-touched girl, was so far gone she seemed to think they were actually moving toward something instead of just crawling for cover, hoping to escape the notice of the gods.

Always marching forward with her eyes ahead and her head cocked to catch any sound from behind - as if that samurai lover of hers, the little red-headed one, the one Sanosuke remembered as a youth with a smoldering temper - as if he would survive, would come galloping over their slow, dragging footsteps to find them.

Damn all women.

Idiotic beliefs - that the future would be better.

That they all had to fight to the end.

That it was honorable to die fighting.

At least the samurai had the sense to set all that aside, live in their bloodlust, their armor, their swords.

And the unwed servant men had it the best. Nothing to do but drink and gamble what little they had and flirt with the servant girls.

How that used to infuriate the fox - drive her half-mad, make her even more haughty and cruel.

Ordering him around, ignoring him, banishing him from her presence like he was a dog.

As if they hadn't come from the same village, known each other all their lives.

And what would he have done? Stayed and fought? Died by his beaten plow-blade, not even a sword?And for what? For that sick, deranged old man? For that cursed valley? For the soldiers? For the courtiers and the concubines sucking all the sweat and blood from the peasants of the land?

No, but he couldn't even slink off to make his own escape. She had to order him away, steal whatever scrap of dignity he had.

He would have stood in the face of armored samurai, standing naked in his peasant clothes with his peasant weapon.

And she would have laughed.

She would have laughed herself sick.

She would have still been laughing when they cut him down in front of her.

Choking with laughter as she died.

As if he could have protected her.

Just as well she had refused him that last humiliation.

On her terms.

Always on her terms.

It made Sanosuke angry enough to want to go back there and... Show her. Find her.

Save her.

Just as well it was far too late.

This little one, though, this little one...

He tried to avoid looking at her.

She had too much determination.

She was like a lamp burning in the midst of a starless night, like a hot fire surrounded by snow.

If he watched, he noticed her falter sometimes.

Sometimes she tripped.

If he watched, he noticed that she was fading.

She was burning herself out.

.


	25. Straggling forward

He had vague memories of movement, blinding pain, a face - an old woman frowning at him, movement and pain and the soothing chill of mud against his skin, the wet earth seeping into his clothes... His clothes.

His armor.

The fighting.

The battle.

It was over.

He wrenched himself upright and looked about him. The field was quiet. He could see naked bodies strewn across the hill and smoke billowing from the direction of the villa. Someone had stripped off all his armor. An old woman, he remembered, shoving him around to untie and twist it all off of him, like he was any other corpse.

A stick digging into his hip. He grimaced and reached under and - his sheathed sword.

So she had been a merciful, or at least a pious old woman.

He wondered if he should leave it, if he still had a right to carry it, but then he thought of Kaoru in the mountains, and his grip tightened around the hilt.

Otherwise, he was nameless and penniless, as he had been, before... As he had been. He had been... Shinta.

No.

Not quite.

No, he could never truly be Shinta again... But it was the only name left to him, and perhaps his parents would forgive him the use he would make of it.

Shinta carefully lifted himself to his feet and picked up his sword and began to walk, limping, to seek the only person he called home.

.

Kaoru could feel the cold coming in. She could feel the quiet. That boorish man, Sanosuke, he seemed to feel it, too - the heavy sorrow in his eyes, the way he watched her at times.

Something quiet.

Something dead.

Luckily the other members of their group were stalwart and strong. The farther they traveled away from the Kiyosato villa the more alert everyone else seemed to become. Mirine had family in one of the villages they were approaching. She ran ahead and later reappeared with some extra food, information about soldiers and other travelers who had been passing by.

It was Mirine and the other stable hand, Katsuhiro, who started making plans about what to do when they got to the shrine. They were the ones who suggested that they re-open it and operate it as a holy place and a refuge for women. At the next stop, a few of the women shaved their heads to show that they were pilgrims.

Kaoru felt a gentle sort of pride. She had known that these people wanted to save themselves. They had only needed enough encouragement to begin.

"What sort of shrine will it be?" she asked.

Hiroko, the old woman, answered her. "It is an ancient shrine. It has always been in the service of the Snow Woman."

A chill suddenly fell over her, but Kaoru did not falter or slow her steps. She was beginning to become accustomed to the feeling.

.


	26. Two pilgrims

.

Shinta limped around the smoking ruins of the villa. Filthy, wearing only a tunic, his hair cropped and carrying only a sword, he looked like a thief. Others on the path - peasants, refugees - ducked their heads to avoid meeting his eyes. One old man whom Shinta recognized as a servant from the villa sneered and laughed at what he saw as the former samurai's misfortune.

There were soldiers, too. Enemy soldiers, visibly stationed in formations around the hillside, watching the villa burn. If they saw him, they would attack him. Shinta would fight. Shinta would kill.

To reach her.

His body was racked with pains from his injuries, his weakness, his hunger.

He sought the next straggler he saw and murmured, "Please."

The woman darted away in fear.

A peasant hut in the distance. Shinta approached and knocked. The door opened, and a short man with dark features peered out. Before Shinta could even bow, the man inside rushed toward him with a knife, and Shinta reacted in his panic. He fought with his sword sheathed and finally struck the man aside his head.

A woman inside was watching with her hand clamped over her mouth, two small children clinging to her knees. Watching as her husband fell.

Shinta bowed as deeply as his aching body would allow. He spoke to the dirt at her feet. "This unworthy one has no wish to harm you. I deeply regret striking your husband. I am hurt and I am a traveler. I seek a shrine in the mountains. I will offer you whatever I can if you will help me. Please."

"You are a thief."

"No. This sword is mine. I was a samurai."

"You killed my husband."

"He is bruised. He will recover."

"You are running away. You will bring soldiers."

"No one is searching for me. ...Please."

"We have nothing."

"Please. I will starve. Please."

The woman shook her head, but then she opened the door wider. She said, "Help me bring my husband inside."

Shinta helped to drag the man to his mat and arrange him comfortably. The woman gave Shinta a bowl of porridge. An egg. A warm, dry spot on the floor to lie on.

When Shinta awoke, the man was sitting over him, carving a piece of wood. His children pressed close to his side and told him, "Our brother woke up!"

The man glared at Shinta, who scrambled to bow and became dizzy.

"Sir-"

"You have rested, traveler. Now get out of my home."

"Sir, if I can do anything-"

"The best a man like you can do in times like these is to leave."

Shinta bowed deeply, stood, and went out the door.

The woman caught him as he stepped away and pressed a dry cake wrapped in leaves into his hand. She whispered, "Pray for us, stranger, when you reach the shrine."

"I don't even know where exactly it is. Just that it's an old, abandoned shrine somewhere in the mountains."

The woman nodded. "There is an old shrine. It isn't far. Take the first path you find that enters the foothills, and keep climbing as you go. It's in a crevice in the mountains where there are always at least a few patches of snow. The winter goddess lives there. Please pray to her to spare us her anger this season but to be generous with her waters for the spring."

"Thank you," Shinta answered. "I didn't realize... that people could be so kind."

The woman shook her head. "Just go now. Take your sword and your troubles and give them to the gods."

.

Kaoru continued to climb the path with the others. She placed her hand on the cart and lent her strength to pushing it. She stepped over the roots and the rocks and the twisting vines that cluttered their way. She smiled gently to her fellow travelers and spoke kind words.

The path was dreary and dark - brown, rotten wood and dank green leaves, glistening mushrooms and mosses. Chill mists as they climbed.

Kaoru could see only snow.

She moved with the others, and she smiled, and she spoke, but her mind was a blank, quiet, blinding white whirlwind of snow.

.


	27. The story of the girl who fought a god

.

Long ago, a people lived on the other side of the mountains. From season to season they moved between the rich valleys and the distant sea. They worshiped the bear god. Every year they fed him and clothed him and praised him and then sent him to his home in heaven so he would send them good hunting and rich harvests in return.

When this story happened, the people had been suffering for several years. The weather had been growing colder. Many of the animals were very difficult to find.

The good chief of this people told them to double their devotions to the bear god, and so they did. They gave up their best treasures to the god. They lived humbly and bravely. They prayed.

Still, the bear god was deaf to their prayers. The people began to grow thin. Many became ill, and some died.

The people grew angry with their chief, blaming him for the anger of their god. They said that perhaps they should seek a new chief and a new god. The chief silenced them. He said that he himself would seek the bear god and entreat the god on his honor to bestow good things upon the people who worshiped him.

So the chief left, tall and proud and strong even dressed in the simple grass cloak of a sacrifice.

He left to climb the mountain where the bear god lived.

He left, and he never returned.

The next winter was the hardest the people had ever known. They cursed the memory of their chief, who had failed.

.

This chief had left a daughter. Half-daughter, half-son. She was his only child. After his wife died the grieving chief had raised the child as if she were a son. He taught her to hunt and to pray just like a man.

This girl-man became distraught and angry at the words of her people. She challenged them to stay true to her father. The people shunned her and cursed her, and finally the girl declared that she would find the bear god for herself.

The bear god had abandoned them.

The bear god had taken her father's life.

The bear god had stolen his memory's pride.

If he would not respond to her pleas, she would fight him for his treachery.

Clothed in the plain grass cloak of a sacrifice and carrying a spear, the girl set out into the mountain, following the same path her father had walked.

.

The bear god was sleeping when she found him. The body of her father had frozen, kneeling at the altar before the bear god's lair, kneeling and frozen and buried in the snow.

"Bear god, hear me!" The girl shouted through her tears. "Hear your people! We have suffered and prayed for you! We are starving! We rely on you! Listen to my father's prayers!"

The bear god growled in his sleep.

"Bear god, hear me! The people are seeking a new god! And for the honor of my father, I will fight you!"

The bear god growled and yawned and finally began to laugh. His body was enormous. His jaw stretched wide open, and his teeth gleamed longer and stronger and sharper than the best of her people's spears.

"Little speck, do you really wish to rouse me? Do you really wish my attention?" His enormous eyes glowed like embers, and his fur glistened.

"You have abandoned my people, and you have killed my father! If you do not accept my sacrifice as an offering and agree to help us, then kill me in self-defense, because I will fight you!"

"Foolish, foolish mortals. Sometimes we notice you and sometimes we do not. I was sleeping. It is you who is wrong. A god is never beholden to mortals. But you, mortal, you have insulted a god."

His eyes flashed, and the girl cried out in her sorrow and her rage and she lunged toward the god. Her spear pierced his thick, glistening pelt and the bear god laughed and laughed before swatting her aside. Her head struck a boulder and she slumped motionless to the ground.

He yawned again and curled back toward sleep when a soft voice interrupted.

"You will not accept her sacrifice?"

The snow woman, guardian of his deep winters, spoke from a nearby tree.

The bear god snorted. "What does a mortal's sacrifice mean to me? Amusing at times, but they must learn their place. A mortal does not command a god."

The snow woman shrugged. "Still, she had more spark than most. There are so many mortals, so many seasons, all the same."

The bear god shuddered and then moved his great body out of his burrow. Awake now, he had decided he would abandon this mountain. He spoke over his shoulder. "You keep her, then, if she interests you."

"A dead mortal is no use to me," the snow woman answered.

"Feed her to your brother, then!" the bear god laughed. "Or turn her to ice. The snows last forever here. Her flesh will keep."

That way, joking, the bear god disappeared like a thundercloud down the mountain side. He left behind the snow woman and the body of the mortal girl who had sacrificed herself out of sorrow and rage.

.


	28. what the winter saw

.

The winter is watching his footsteps.

She watches him marking his bloodprints through the snow.

.


	29. Meeting again

When soldiers (ex-samurai, deserters like himself) attacked him, Shinta drew his sword, and their blood fell over him like rain.

It didn't sicken him the way it used to. They would have killed him, and he couldn't die yet. He had to get to Kaoru.

He left their armor and their weapons. He took their coins. He took their food.

He kept to the path that climbed higher and higher up the mountain, higher and higher into the biting winds and the chilling clouds. He followed broken, trampled branches and the faint traces of wagon ruts. The tracks were getting deeper. He was getting closer.

Black eyes haunted his dreams, long black hair and white garments and a soft voice that whispered like snow.

Shinta ignored the way the night shadows seemed to watch him. He ignored the chill winds, and he ignored his memories.

.

When he arrived at the shrine - the broken stones, the shadows, the pilgrims with shorn hair - he felt almost as cold inside as he had been before she had ever warmed him.

But then she was there, seeing him, calling his name, coming toward him, and Shinta remembered what it was to smile.

He remembered. He remembered what it was to feel warm.

She was gazing at him and touching his face and calling his name (his old name), and Shinta felt alive.

A tall man, familiar from the manor, was watching him also, arms crossed, threatening. Some of the others gaped at him. Others went about their chores.

She had grown thinner. Her eyes - something distant, something dark.

It didn't matter.

She was alive.

He was alive.

Soon, he sat amongst them, in the half-repaired shrine. The people had made a humble stew - hot, simple, delicious. "Call me Shinta," he told them, after he had finished his bowl. "That is the name my parents gave me. My old name is dead."

It was the first time he had ever sat in a group of equals - all refugees, all pilgrims. It was the first time he had spoken as himself, for himself.

Shinta was alive.

The tall man met his eyes. Some of the other ex-servants nodded. They understood loyalty, breaking loyalty.

Kaoru stared at him and finally nodded, her fingertips barely touching the coarse fabric over his arm. Something concerning, something like confusion in her eyes, but he couldn't ask her then.

.

Later, in the evening, she sat next to him outside the entrance to the shrine. Shinta flushed. All of the rules, everything that defined what he could do, what she could do, it was gone. ...Could he touch her? Would she want him to touch her? Before, their touches had been brief, clouded by need or fear or worry. Could he... hold her...? As the evening set in?

"Shinta," she said. Her fingers touched his fingers. She tentatively took hold of his hand. "You are... still you. No matter what your name is." His hand lay slack, burning under hers. She tightened her grip. "Shinta, promise me..."

"Anything."

"Promise me you'll always call me Kaoru."

In the evening light her skin looked very pale, and her eyes were wide, pleading.

Shinta smiled and turned his hand palm up to match his palm to her palm, to squeeze her fingers in return. He met her eyes to show her that he was serious. "Of course, Kaoru."

She smiled. Shinta felt something like a choking in his chest, a desperate need to protect that smile, protect her.

He noticed again that she had grown thin since he had last seen her. He looked into her eyes and held firmly her warm hand and tried not to show her his worry.

They sat together in silence, close and silent. They sat with their shoulders leaning close together and their breath in concert and their hands locked as they watched the sun set.

.


	30. Autumn

.

She fell asleep in his arms.

Shinta held her close to him and breathed in the earthy scent of her hair, the smell of her. She must have been exhausted. He was exhausted, but he couldn't sleep, couldn't believe that he was here, they were safe, she was with him. In the black and silent autumn night, Shinta's mind was awash with pulsing warmth and light.

Finally Kaoru shifted and murmured. She twisted in his lap and twined her arms around his middle. A sharp, slicing pain in his leg where he had been injured, but Shinta ignored it.

"We should go inside," Kaoru whispered. It was impossible to move, impossible to lose her warmth, impossible to stand, but she was pulling away from him, and Shinta was on his feet, his leg screaming and his arms aching, helping her up.

He did not let go of her hand.

Mirine met them inside, handed him a modest blanket, and showed them to a corner. She cast a questioning glance at Kaoru before stepping away.

Shinta frowned. His fingers tightened around her hand. He would not let her go, but if it was only for the night...

Kaoru moved closer to him. She placed her hand on his shoulder, and she spoke into his ear, "Let's sleep."

He couldn't make out her face in the dark, but he could tell she was looking at him, waiting.

They arranged themselves on the floor, her toes pressed against his ankles, her head tucked under his chin, a rough pallet underneath them, a thin blanket for warmth.

Kaoru fell asleep instantly.

Shinta closed his eyes and finally relaxed.

.

Kaoru awoke in Kenshin's arms. His arrival the day before - the journey up the mountain, the day of the battle, the villa - everything seemed like a dream.

Sunlight glowed through the doorway to the shrine and the holes in the roof. Noises outside - birds in the forest, muffled voices, the scrape and pounding of tools. Everyone else was already long awake, working to repair their shelter, augment their supplies.

They were alone.

Kaoru turned her gaze on Kenshin - Shinta. His hair made a dark reddish halo around his head. Snoring gently, his features peaceful - even with his scars, he looked young.

Kaoru felt very warm. For the first time in days, perhaps weeks, she felt alive and aware in her body. She felt content. She felt like moving. She felt awake.

.

Shinta rose out of a deep and restful sleep to find a beautiful young woman leaning over him, smiling gently at him.

Kaoru.

Without thinking, he reached for her.

Then he was the one leaning over her, and her eyes were wide, blinking up at him. She reached for his shoulder with one hand, carding the other through his hair. Her foot rubbed against his calf, and she met his eyes. Her eyes creased in a warm smile, and Shinta realized he was grinning.

.

.

Sanosuke cursed the axe in his hand. He cursed the wood, and he cursed the child who brought him his midday rice.

Men and women.

First Hiro and that Mirine woman, and now the storm girl's samurai had returned.

Already the shrine was become a small village in miniature. Soon there would be gossip and fighting and illnesses. Soon other refugees and pilgrims would start arriving. In a year's time there would be babies, at least two at this rate.

Sano wanted none of it. He could still smell the burning villa. He could see the swords flashing when he closed his eyes.

Some day soon he would leave these people, leave this mountain. Everyone. Everything.

He had heard about the sea.

He would go to where no one spoke his language.

He would go beyond all these gods and monsters.

Someday, soon, he would leave.

.


	31. Prayer

.

For weeks, the little shrine became almost like a home. Shinta worked next to Sanosuke and Katsuhiro splitting logs and building makeshift structures. Both men had been stable hands back at the manor, and Shinta had hardly spoken with them beyond coordinating the keeping of Akira's horse, but now they shared the same work, the same food, the same shelter.

Sanosuke didn't talk much beyond cursing and grumbling, often to Shinta's silent agreement, but Katsuhiro could spend hours spinning a tale. Even Shinta could see he was handsome - he had a smile for everyone, he flirted shamelessly with the old women and the young girls, and he worked hard. He guarded Sano's volatile moods like a mother and traded gentle smiles with Kaoru.

Shinta saw the way Kaoru and Hiro smiled at each other. He saw the way she fought with Sano, answering his sarcasm with quips of her own, needling him when he sulked, worrying for him. He saw the way Sano's eyes would sometimes follow her around the yard.

Shinta might have been jealous, but he knew that Mirine watched Hiro like a hawk, and he knew that Kaoru, however much she smiled at anyone else or fought with anyone else, was his. The way she touched his arm when she brought him his meals. The way she smiled when she was with him. The way she looked at him.

Clearings in the forest, away from everyone else, in the afternoon sun, on a bed of fallen leaves - the heat of her mouth, the smell of her sweat, her body clinging to him, her joy, his release... Shinta almost didn't recognize himself, his need for her, his happiness. He lost his mind in wonder at the light of her smile, the peace of lying in her arms.

.

The days became colder. Nearby families began to bring gifts for the shrine, and then he would always have to find her, because she had disappeared into the forest. He would find her, and she would stare into his eyes and tell him to say her name.

Shinta could almost ignore the desperation in her touches, the shadows growing under her eyes.

It occurred to him that they should leave this shelter, leave this mountain before the winter set in, but it was late, very late in the year to begin a journey. They would be risking starvation or worse.

The gift-bearing pilgrims had reminded him of his own obligation to the family who had helped him. One night when Kaoru had crept to their corner early to sleep, Shinta knelt in the shadows at the altar. He lit herbs and shook prayer sticks, and he remembered blinding white snow and the cold, Akira's skin so cold, Akira a ghost while he was still alive. He remembered the family, their children, and he thought of a mild winter and a rich, wet spring. He remembered the cold. He felt the warmth in his own body - he had survived famine and wars and winters. She had spared him so far. She could spare others. He squeezed his eyes shut and he begged her - "Please."

.


	32. Snow

Kaoru grew ill when the first snow fell.

The first night, she stared at him - "Shinta..." Something haunted - a hopeless sort of resignation, fear in her eyes.

Helpless, he watched her succumb to fever, and he cursed himself. They should have left when they had the chance. The should have left as soon as they were reunited. Listening to the wind howl, pushing snow against the walls, under the floor, Shinta remembered a sweep of long black hair, the palest skin, black upon black eyes - She must be very cruel. She must wish to spite him. ...Or punish him, punish him for all the wrongs he had done.

He had been a fool, a fool to forget - the darkness, the cold. His years as a samurai. The women of the battlefield.

A fool, forgetting to suffer. Now she would punish him.

.

Sometimes Kaoru could sit up and talk and she seemed full of energy, too much energy. She assured them all she was getting better, she would be fine.

But other times, in the evenings, her eyes glazed over and she would plead softly, "Shinta... When can we leave?"

Kaoru's gaze lost in the distance, Shinta struggled not to remember Akira, listless and wasting. He squeezed Kaoru's hands until she looked at him and he told her, "Soon." He held her hand and he promised her that as soon as the weather cleared, they would leave, they would head south. They would find a warm and sunny valley. They would farm.

The snow kept falling. Blistering winds and layer upon layer of white over the buildings and the branches and the fallen leaves, covering the paths down the mountain.

Mirine kept up a steady supply of hot miso broth and soothing words. One evening Shinta couldn't stand to watch Kaoru suffer any longer and he ran out, past Mirine mopping her brow, past the old woman chanting, past Sano's angry glower, Hiro's worried frown. He ran into the dazzling white whirlwind far enough almost to lose himself.

Looking... If he could find her. If he could see her again, perhaps he could plead with her. Perhaps he could trade with her, a life for a life.

Outside in the blizzard with no sight of her, long enough to understand how isolated they were. There was no path out. A storm like this could last all winter.

Shinta cursed and shouted to the freezing winds, "Where are you?"

The night howled in answer, hungry and merciless.

Kenshin remembered Akira, a ghost the day of the battle and Shinta almost believed he had dreamed it out of blood loss and exhaustion, but - _You will lose her_, he had said.

.

He made it back to the shrine. He almost missed it, but the firelight gleaming through the night drew him back. He was frozen to the bone, but she hadn't come to him. No fathomless gaze, no kiss, no bargain.

He crouched next to Kaoru, and she was so still... Barely breathing. Shinta bowed his head and could have wept.

Then she stirred. She turned toward him, and it must have been the shadows, but her eyes were wide and completely dark. She looked straight at him with those empty eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was as cold and faint as a steady fall of snowflakes whispering through trees.

"_Are you fond of your butterfly, little moth?_"

Frozen. Kenshin felt frozen with terror. A strangled sound clawed its way up from his chest, through his throat.

It couldn't be. It _couldn't_ be... "Kaoru." He choked out her name, desperate - as if it were a spell, as if her name alone could summon her, bind her, save her.

The snow woman smiled then, closed her eyes, and slept.

.


	33. Solstice

Sanosuke left in the middle of winter.

He wove a pair of wide, flat snow shoes, threw a bear skin over his shoulders, filled a bag with food, and said goodbye.

"It's too much for me, Missy," he told Kaoru.

She glanced up at him with wide eyes and nodded her understanding.

She would sit up and weave during the day. Every day snow lay on the ground, she had to fight to stay awake, stay aware. Her body burned with fever. She would choke down broth and gruel, growing thinner, but still alive, still fighting.

Shinta watched her, burning inside with his own outrage. He could do nothing for her. Kaoru would look at him and smile, as if, somehow, she weren't the only one fighting. As if he helped her somehow. Shinta appreciated the lie.

At night her body lay cool and still, and he lay still beside her, waiting... Every night expecting the cold touch, the endless darkness, an icy kiss.

It never came.

The old woman muttered prayers under her breath every morning and every evening.

Katsuhiro and Mirine entertained the children with songs and stories.

Somehow, the long nights began to grow shorter.

Somehow, the snow began to melt.

Somehow, spring arrived.

Underneath the snow and ice - green.

Life had crept in while they had endured the long, cold nights.

.

Even frighteningly thin and prone to dizzy spells, Kaoru was eager to travel. She smiled brilliantly while the birds sang and Shinta prepared their belongings. Visitors had started coming to the shrine again, and they were able to barter some of Kaoru's weaving and a statuette Shinta had carved for a small cart Kaoru could ride.

Mirine was not happy at their leaving so soon. Shinta, while he wanted to put this mountain far behind them, also worried that the strain might be too much.

But Kaoru dismissed their concerns with a shake of her head. "I'm not going to wait anymore," she said.

"We're alive," she told him. "You and I are alive. Even if we only have a short time, it's worth more than..." and then she smiled and shook her head and put her hands around his face.

Better to lose you than never to have had you, she meant. Shinta couldn't argue, though he felt himself already going mad at the thought of living without her.

Kaoru wanted to go.

So.

They would go.

.


	34. Kitsune

They followed the path she had come by, less than a year before.

They followed it down into the ash-strewn valley, past the burnt wreckage of timbers where the villa had been.

The peasants they passed... It was a world Shinta had never known. Still thin and filthy (as Kaoru and himself had become), scraping furrows in the fields, they would pause in their work to smile at the couple. They offered food and places to rest.

"You should watch out for your husband, Miss," one woman warned Kaoru. "This valley is haunted, and the fox spirit has a taste for men who carry swords."

Others corroborated the story. Several soldiers who had lingered after the battle last fall were later found cold and motionless, their clothing torn, their bodies sliced open and drained of blood. Over the winter, other samurai ventured in on a raid, and the same thing happened to them. The one survivor, hardly more than a child himself, spoke of a demonic woman, her mesmerizing beauty, her elegance. Her laughter as she seduced his comrades. Her cruelty. Her terrifying lust for blood.

That night Shinta felt a woman's hand - softer than Kaoru's, with longer fingers and sharp, terribly sharp nails, cutting shallow tracks of blood across his chest. He woke to the echo of a woman's laughter, her voice low and rich and... familiar.

"Stay away from him, damn it!" Kaoru hissed. She was sitting up beside him, staring out into the darkness, trying to see...

But no one was there.

The next few days, Kaoru was irritable, jealous and angry and worried that a demon had set her sights on Shinta.

Their nights were uneventful, and Shinta tried to reassure Kaoru that they had nothing more to fear. Kaoru didn't believe him, and finally she whacked him on the arm in frustration. He grinned; he couldn't help it. Every day, he saw that she was getting stronger. Even her sleep had become peaceful.

What was a vengeful demon next to that?

.


	35. Coming Home

.

They followed the old path for days and days, the sun growing stronger and the nights waning mild.

Eventually they began to meet monks on the path. A few of the men recognized Kaoru and greeted her warmly. Shaven heads, jostling each other, they joked with her.

"You've broken all our hearts, miss, coming back with a husband!"

Laughter.

Summer.

Smiles.

Shinta felt his skin burning in the sun. He felt the scars on his face itching, inflamed.

Kaoru reached for his hand to draw him out of his silence, and Shinta plastered politeness all over his face.

"What is wrong with you?" she hissed at him once the monks had passed.

Shinta couldn't explain it to her. He couldn't explain that it was different. His elation at their freedom seemed to evaporate at meeting the monks. These people knew Kaoru. They weren't simply wanderers here.

Suddenly Shinta could feel the callouses on his hand and the scars on his body, and he knew he should have been cut wide open, should have been killed and buried in a field, like the others. He knew he had no right to survive, no right to this happiness.

No right to be her husband.

He couldn't find words to tell her, but when they were alone... When they were alone again, he felt relieved.

.

Following the path toward the monastery, the earth rose gently into hills and rolling farm land.

A boy in the distance stopped his work to watch them. Suddenly he threw down his hoe and started running toward them.

"You... you... ugly old hag!" He threw himself at Kaoru. Shinta had gripped his sword, ready to strike, but the boy wasn't armed, and Kaoru was... smiling.

"Hey, it's rude to talk like that." She knocked him lightly on the head, hugging him. She cast a quick, warning glance at Shinta.

Finally the boy pushed her off of him. "We all thought you were dead! Grandmother and Grandfather have been worried about you! And you're filthy! Have you been traveling all this time, and ...hey that's, that's him!"

Kaoru stepped closer to Shinta. "It's all right, Yahiko. This is... Shinta. He's my husband."

They boy was glaring at him, and Shinta remembered, now: the old man, the boy, the cart filled with cloth.

"He's the samurai."

That night the storm and the Mibu wolves had rained destruction on their camp. He had ridden through the storm to find... her. She had put herself forward, protecting the boy.

He had had armor, then. He had ridden a horse, and his soul had been shriveled and dry. He had been fierce.

That must be what the boy recalled.

Something seemed to lock inside him. Whatever this boy saw, Shinta knew that he had a new life now. Standing in the sunlight, hair shorn, dirty from the road, battered sword by his side - poor and standing tall next to Kaoru, this was his life, and he would fight for it against anyone.

"I'm not a samurai any longer."

The boy continued to stare at him, frowning. Then he glanced at Kaoru, and finally he nodded. He faced Shinta and made a formal bow.

Accepted.

Forgiven.

Yahiko turned back to Kaoru and broke into a grin. "They're going to be so happy to see you, they might die of shock!" He laughed and sprinted toward a small house in the distance.

Accepted.

Just like that.

"Yahiko!" Kaoru shouted after him. "Don't joke like that! Hey, Yahiko!" And then she was rushing after him. She went a few yards and then slowed down, turned. "Shinta, come on!"

Shinta began to pull the cart after her. He moved slowly.

He was poor and a wanderer and Kaoru was his wife. They were among people who considered themselves her family. Their family.

Their country. Their family.

They had nothing.

They had everything.

That boy had known her and known _him _and had accepted them.

They might be secure here.

As he pulled their meager belongings up the hill toward the house, Shinta began to smile gently.

He would savor this newfound life.

.


	36. Peace

.

This is how it was with Kaoru:

That winter had been full of cold and lonely dreams.

She didn't remember, exactly, but she knew a few things.

She knew that she had had a father.

She remembered... She remembered what he had been like.

Strong. Kind.

She knew she had lost him.

She knew she had been cold and desperate and angry.

So cold...

Some nights had been nothing but empty and hungry and cold.

She knew there was something next to her, something inside of her, something that wasn't her. Something she could never escape.

She knew that in the daylight, in the sunshine, that Otherness melted away.

With Kenshin - Shinta - beside her, the road before them, the ripening summer - each day that was theirs, how could she do anything but rejoice?

.

Genzai and Kohaku welcomed her like a long lost child. Kaoru felt ashamed. Her time with them had been so short, she hadn't realized how much they had missed her. She embraced them and called them grandparents, smiling and weeping.

Shinta was still quiet, but he stepped forward firmly and begged Genzai's pardon for marrying his granddaughter without his permission. A formality. He was greeted warmly, and he took his place as family.

Kaoru couldn't remember ever having a family before. Days and weeks and months at the shrine, swept away in illness, fever dreams... She remembered Mirine, Sanosuke, Katsuhiro, the old woman and the children... If she ever saw them again, they would be her family, too.

She thought of going to visit, but... A shudder, remembering the shrine. The snow. The cold.

No, her life was here now. Perhaps the others would visit some day.

.

Yahiko had been splitting his time between weaving and farming Genzai and Kohaku's land, but now with two adults helping, he could go into the village more often, enjoy being young.

Kaoru and Shinta moved into a small hut near the house. Shinta hid away his sword and took up the plow.

Dark thoughts still lurked in his memories, his muscles and his sweat, but they melted away when he looked at her.

.

Heavy storms that summer.

Sometimes the thunder seemed to be calling her name.

Kaoru let him go on calling.

She was content.

.


	37. Epilogue I

Natsuko

.

It was the most arduous experience of his life. Even at a distance and trying not to listen, the occasional shriek and moan reached him.

She was in pain. She might be dying.

He could do nothing.

He felt like he was going insane.

.

The pain was beyond anything Kaoru had imagined, but Kohaku was there, strength in her old arms, warmth in her hands, a constant murmur in Kaoru's ear, telling her she had strength in herself.

Terrible pains. Pushing against a wall of pain and on and on and on - far past the point when she would have thought she could stand no more.

She couldn't remember anything that had happened in the last several hours - biting her tongue at first, but after that she couldn't remember anything she had said, anything she had shouted. She didn't remember standing or walking or sitting or moaning or digging her fingers into Kohaku's bony arms.

At last a final push, an aching movement, and suddenly the pain was transformed into the purest bliss Kaoru had ever known.

.

A long silence. A silence worse than the screams. Then a faint sound... The old woman. The old woman calling his name.

Kenshin ran to the hut and wrenched open the door. He was sure... He was sure... It was over. It was all over.

Inside... She was alive.

She was alive, drenched in sweat. Alive, smiling so broadly - looking more exhausted and happier than he had ever seen her. In her arms - grey, red, wet - something being wiped dry by Grandmother.

A baby.

His child.

Their daughter.

Shinta stumbled forward, laughing, weeping, gasping, reaching out, gently, to embrace his wife.

.


	38. Epilogue II

Fruits

.

Natsuko and Koji were unusual children.

Natsuko did not like to be held and she did not speak her first word until she had seen seven years. She never played the way other children did.

Every summer they had terrible storms, and Natsuko could always be found outside, getting drenched, staring at the sky as it lit up with lightening and crashed with thunder.

Shinta worried for her, but sometimes Kaoru would sit outside with her, silent as her daughter, still amidst the wind and rain, smoothing Natsuko's hair.

Koji was the opposite of his sister. He would tear through their home and through the fields, laughing. He grew up to be strong and fast. Even as a child, he had a fierce pride and a fierce sense of dignity.

The only times he lay still were in the winter, when his mother was sick. Then he would curl up next to her while Natsuko and Shinta took care of the chores. When he wasn't working, Shinta would sit up next to his wife and sleeping son, worried and watching.

.

Raising their children in lands protected by the monastery, Shinta and Kaoru only sometimes heard stories of the north.

The farms that used to feed the Koshimizu and the Mibu now all fell under the name of Makimachi. The border wars were at an end. For the first time in generations, children were born and grew strong in an era of peace. Because the Makimachi daimyo and her lord were frugal rulers, demanding few riches, prosperity also began to grow among the people.

The Makimachi never touched the lands that had belonged to the Kiyosato. That valley was known as a fearful place, haunted by a powerful fox demon and the ghosts of warriors. All the samurai clans between the mountains and the sea learned to leave it well alone.

Freed from the threat of wars and raids, the peasants who remained in the Kiyosato valley began to grow rich in their own right. Some went into trade where they were feared and respected. Rumors clung to them - rumors that anyone born in that valley had powerful magic at his or her command.

.

In the hills around the monastery, where stories and travelers only rarely visited, mild winter followed violent summer, one after another, for twelve years.

.


	39. Epilogue III

The Last Season

.

It was late in summer, and Shinta was working to bring in another harvest. Koji and Natsuko and Yahiko were still helping to finish up Grandmother and Grandfather's field while Kaoru was inside, preparing the family's afternoon meal.

It was a hot day, and another storm was gathering over his head. He was used to them - sudden, brief storms breaking up the heat of the day.

In a flash of lightening, Shinta happened to glance toward his house, and he saw his wife standing outside, speaking to a tall man with white hair. But he couldn't have seen that, because in the next flash of lightening, Kaoru was alone.

She was watching the sky, her face solemn. After a moment, without looking at Shinta, she turned and went inside.

.

That evening she held him closely, fiercely. He whispered her name and she said "I love you." She was weeping.

In the morning she acted like nothing was wrong.

.

She was the same as she had ever been as the summer turned to fall. Perhaps she smiled more. Perhaps she watched them all more closely. Perhaps she reached out more often to touch her husband, her children, her adopted family.

Perhaps it was her way of telling them that she would always love them.

Shinta watched her - as beautiful as ever, a few laugh lines to suggest she had aged. He watched her and he grew as silent as his daughter and as short-tempered as his son. He hovered over his wife. He relished her eyes, her skin, her laughter, her feigned annoyance when he wouldn't leave her alone. He held her whenever he could.

He never spoke the words, but each beat of his heart throbbed "Don't leave me don't leave me don't leave me."

.

Kaoru never spoke of that day, but it dogged her memory.

She had never seen him before, but she knew him. She knew who he was. She knew what he was.

He had taken the form of a tall young man - he might have been handsome but for his stark white hair and frightening eyes that were blue as the sky.

He had approached her casually. He was smiling. All he said was, _"Sister, hasn't it been long enough?" _

But his blue eyes were deadly serious and something inside her sighed and lowered her eyes and said _"Yes."_

.


	40. Epilogue IV

The Last Night

.

After twelve mild winters, the blizzard came.

It was like that first night, long ago. Freezing cold but for their small fire. Silent but for the screaming wind. Darkness in the shadows cast by their trembling flame - the night outside bore eerie lights gleaming amidst the snow.

The children, even Koji, were sleeping peacefully in their bed.

She looked at him, her eyes bright with fever.

She looked at him one last time, and she was gone.

.

The woman stood up.

She was tall and pale and terrible and beautiful.

Shinta whispered "Kaoru," but the spell didn't break.

The woman did not look at him. She was staring at the children.

In that moment, Shinta would have fought her. He would have stopped her or died trying, but then she turned to him, and she said, _"I know you will take care of them."_

Her eyes were black upon black, solemn as a vow, and though his heart had broken...

Of course he would take care of their children.

Shinta closed his eyes and he wanted to die, but he couldn't.

The snow woman would not let him.

Kaoru would frown and weep for him if she saw him like this.

Kaoru would want him to live.

The door opened and the night rushed in to douse the fire and their small hut was empty and cold but for one broken man and two sleeping children.

He had to live.

He had to explain to the others... that she was gone.

.

Later, when they found her, some wondered at how young she appeared. They would have sworn it was the body of a girl only fourteen or fifteen, not a mother of two. But everyone recognized Kaoru, and anyone who began to whisper rumors of witchcraft... Well, what did it matter now?

It had been a long time since there had been a storm like that, a long time since the winter had taken a life. It was tragic enough to quiet such talk.

.


	41. Epilogue Final

The Last Dawn

.

Natsuko sighed. Her father had stayed awake all night again. He had done that at times, almost her whole life, ever since their mother had gone, but now for the past several weeks he had been sleeping less and less, eating less and less.

He only cast her a wry smile when she tsksed at finding him awake. ...He was so stubborn. He was as hard as steel.

He knew she had her own family to take care of. She could only spare so much time for him. Every morning at the first hint of light she walked the path from the farm house to the old hut, where he still lived, and brought him his breakfast. He knew she couldn't stay long. She couldn't stay to look after him, even though they both knew he was dying.

He had refused to move in to the large house with them, after Grandfather and Grandmother died and Natsuko finally found a man who would marry her.

This hovel had been _her_ home, and he wouldn't leave.

If Koji were here... But Koji had left nearly five years ago, chasing his own demons.

No, Koji would only cause trouble if he were here, but Natsuko missed her brother all the same. She would have had someone, then, who understood.

Selfish of her.

It was good that Yahiko, at least, had come to visit for a few days. He had left his own farmland and come to sit with the old man.

Natsuko couldn't comfort her father. She could never comfort him. She knew she was like her mother - but not the parts of her mother that her father had loved.

Now the summer was here, and he was both calm and excited as though preparing for a journey.

He had worked hard his whole life, worked hard for his children, even in those darkest days when the house was filled with his silent despair.

He had worked hard - years and years of work and waiting, and at last his wait was over.

She hated that she could never be sad the way he had been sad. She had never felt the loss the way he had felt it. It was just another thing - yet another thing that made her different.

So he could be glad that the sorrow was over - and as his daughter, she could resent him, a little, for being glad.

Still, she hoped, for his sake, that he would meet his wife again.

And she could be glad a little, too, that he might finally recover his happiness.

And she could be sad - for herself, for her family - but not for long.

Natsuko bid her father goodbye and stepped back onto the path toward her own home.

She had her own work to do.

.

**Fin**


	42. Author's Note

_Author's Note:_

_Ok, y'all were right; I was wrong. It wasn't over._

_You might see, though, why I had wanted to cut the story short when I did._


End file.
